And then there were Three . . .

Choosing the the final three roses to give me pleasure on my desert island has, not surprisingly given the huge choice, been very difficult, and I am not at all sure that I have come up with the right answers. None of them would win a prize at the local flower show, their individual flowers not being very distinguished. Neither are they especially famous, in the way that for instance Fantin Latour is. Perhaps nearest to being in that category is Stanwell Perpetual. As with many other roses its colour changes with the weather but it is essentially white with sometimes a quite pronounced pinkish tinge. Quest-Ritson on the other hand says that it is shell pink fading to white with age, but I think that he is wrong, or at any rate from a distance it more often appears white than pink. . The flower is old-fashioned in style with a good perfume, and as the name suggests they appear if not quite continuously at least very frequently and certainly late into the season. It has pretty fern like leaves, and if occasionally these suffer from a bit of rust, it is never enough to be disfiguring. Finally it is a tough as old boots, and needs pruning only really if it threatens to become too big.


Stanwell Perpetual is a rose for everybody's garden, though curiously I first saw it in the Paradise Garden at Sutton Place, a garden designed by the great Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe for an American millionaire, so that in singling it out for praise I feel that I am in good company. My next rose, Morletti, I first saw in an even more famous garden, none other than Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst. In fact my rose bible, already referred to - the Quest-Ritsons RHS Rose encyclopedia - is a little bit sniffy about it, remarking that the flowers 'are seldom attractively shaped and are almost scentless', to which I could add that it is only really once flowering, though the occasional flower may appear later in the year. But it is as a garden bush that it wins out; red almost thornless stems and red early foliage followed by marvellous autumn colour, and if the individual flowers may not be up to much - they are of a purply pink which goes very well with the foliage - en masse they make a big impact. At Sissinghurst it was in the orchard, not in the main rose garden, and it is that sort of rose, to be planted in your wilder 'massifs' where it will give enormous pleasure.

Finally another rose for the wilder parts of your garden, Rosa Virginiana. It is not as tall as Morletti, but is very much a spreader, and the flowers are single rather than double, but there are similarities, especially in the fact that the autumn colour of the leaves is an outstanding feature, enhanced by generous hips. It is by no means a classic rose but one that will very much earn its keep on my desert island, along that is with Fantin Latour, Queen of Denmark, Mme Isaac Pereire, Penelope, Trier, Molineux, Crown Princess Margareta, Stanwell Perpetual, and Morletti. Looking at the list I am aware that sentiment has played a large part in my choice, and for instance I am aware that many of the roses that I have bought recently, and that are for the most part completely new to me, many from La Roseraie du Desert, do not appear. This is partly because they still need a bit more time to settle in, and I will then be in a better position to evaluate them. But in the end I do not apologize for my choice, since I am a strong believer that sentiment plays a vital part in one's love of gardening.