Five new roses for 2019

You might wonder why there are new roses launched every year, but actually it’s because intense breeding is producing new roses that are not only very beautiful, but they are often scented, repeat flowering and offer good disease resistance – all major improvements on some of the older varieties.

The Festival of Roses Marquee at this year’s RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival has had a bit of a makeover and the results are spectacular even though the light wasn’t great for photography.

There is a Rose tea garden outside where visitors can enjoy a cup of tea and some beautiful borders planted with summer flowering perennials and roses. It’s a chance to see what plants to grow with your roses and experience the roses first hand.

Choosing a rose is truly down to personal choice. But at RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival you can literally smell the roses and see them close up where you can decide which ones you like and observer the colour changes as the flowers. Here are five new roses for 2019.

Rose ‘Friends’

Launched on behalf of the Greenfingers Charity is a hybrid tea rose called ‘Friends’. It has buttercup yellow, fragrant flowers and rich green foliage.

For every rose sold through garden centres and by Fryers Roses online, £1 will be donated to Greenfingers. Fryers Roses is part of the Blue Diamond Group.

Rose ‘Reach for the Stars’

This lovely peachy rose is a climber, so it’s a great way to add interest to a wall, or a fence, or train it up an obeslisk. It’s been launched to raise money for the Alder Hey Children’s Charity by Fryers Roses, £1 from every rose sold will go to support the charity.

It has large flowers that are apricot yellow in bud opening to dusky peach with a rich spicy sweet perfume. Perfect for pillars it grows to around 2-3m tall and has good disease resistance.

Rose ‘Eustacia Vye’

This beautiful rose is a new introduction from David Austin Roses.

It’s an exceedingly pretty rose with soft, glowing apricot-pink flowers. Each fruity fragrant bloom is held on red tinged stems and densely packed with numerous delicately ruffled petals.

The flowers begin as shallow cups, opening to full rosettes, revealing petals of a richer coloured hue, and then gradually fade over time. This is a very healthy variety that will make a strong, vigorous shrub with bushy, upright growth. It’s been named after the flawed heroine of Thomas Hardy’s, The Return of the Native.

Rose ‘Gabriel Oak’

This is a magnificent deep pink rose from David Austin roses. The deep pink flowers are large, with many tightly packed petals with the outer petals of each bloom paling slightly over time to give an almost bicolor effect.

The beauty of the blooms is enhanced by their wonderful, strong fruity fragrance. It’s a vigorous rose and forms a very shapely, broad, rounded shrub with mulberry purple stems and dark green foliage, giving the overall impression of richness and abundance. Named after the beloved character in Thomas Hardy’s novel, Far from the Madding Crowd.

Rose ‘Sweet Honey’

Sweet Honey has been named as the 2020 Rose of the Year. It’s a pretty floribunda rose with large clusters of elegant, creamy apricot hybrid tea-shaped flowers with a fruity fragrance and was launched at the RHS 2019 Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival.

The rose shows outstanding disease resistance has a strong, bushy, upright growth habit and lovely glossy dark-green foliage. This charming rose is perfect for planting in mixed borders in or pots on a terrace and can also form an attractive low hedge.