Beautiful Bourbons

Above and below: Souvenir de St Anne's. This most gorgeous rose is a sport of the famous Bourbon Souvenir De La Malmaison, and I love her even more than her better-known parent because she is much better behaved...far fewer petals means none of that awful soggy balling that SDLM is famous for. And her scent is to die for! I have two specimens of 'Anne' (she gets her her name from the Irish estate garden of St. Anne's in which she was found)- one grows at the base of a Manchurian Pear next to Souvenir De La Malmaison, and has only grown to 3 1/2 feet high. The other is in a better position, albeit crowded between Summer Breeze, Manettii and Gladsome, but has grown to about 4 1/2 feet in height and width.

Above and below: The Bourbon rose "Mrs Paul". She is apparently a seedling from Mme Isaac Pereire, although I can see no resemblance to the latter at all. Mrs Paul is lovely in full flush..her individual blooms are not as stunning as some Bourbons, but she flowers very prolifically in late October and again later in the season. Her blooms are very fragrant, and her habit is arching.

Above: Souvenir de la Malmaison is a rose that is capable of both making you want to tear your hair out in frustration and within a week soaring into your Top Ten of All-Time Roses. In our garden she is a "baller"...sometimes her magnificent blooms are nothing but sodden soggy balls that refuse to open. At other times, she opens like the bloom in the photo above, and takes your breath away. Her scent is amazing- if only the balling tendency didn't exist, she really would come close to being the perfect rose. Our specimen grows at the base of a Manchurian pear, and had to be severely cut back this last season due to die back in the long canes that had woven their way up through the branches.

Above: 'Bourbon Queen' is a once-flowering Bourbon rose, but the huge display that she gives in mid-October each year makes her well-worthy of her place in the garden. I grow her at the base of an old Swamp Mahogany stump, and her growth is sprawling with long arching canes (see the photo below), weighted down with blooms. Her fragrance is not as strong as most of her fellow Bourbons, but still very pleasing.

Above: The sprawly habit of Bourbon Queen.

Above: Bourbon Queen ( and Lavernius)

Above: Mme Isaac Pereire grown on a small arch and inter-mingling with Sparrieshoop. In the background on the other side of the track, Multiflora Cathayensis is happily suckering away and covering a very tough area of ground.

Above: Mme Isaac Pereire, suitable as a small climber or an arching shrub.

Above: Mme Isaac Pereire.

Above: Mme Isaac Pereire, one of the loveliest of the Bourbon family. I planted two either side of an arch 15 years ago, and despite being totally neglected after they were established, they have soldiered on and provided stunning Spring displays year after year since. The colour is unique; the fragrance very strong, and the blooms are so packed with sumptuous petals that as I wander about the garden I can never resist picking a bloom to bury my face in.

I did get a lot of die back in one of my Mme Isaacs last year that required cutting out, but she has responded well with new growth this spring.

Above: I am not a huge fan of striped roses..at least, not those horrid "in-your-face" modern varieties that make me cringe...but this softly striped old Bourbon rose is one of my favourites. Her name is Honorine de Brabant, and she was released in France in 1874. I grow her as a shrub, where she has grown to about 4 X 4 feet, and this time of the year she is covered with hundreds of buds and blooms, each one uniquely different in their stripey pattern. Most open a soft pinky-lilac colour with slightly darker stripes and flecks, but occasionally on the bush will appear one very dark coloured bloom with lighter striping, perhaps a throwback to Commandant Beaurepaire, the rose from which some people believe Honorine sported.

Above: The many different faces of Honorine De Brabant.