Tea roses lives for not a few years but even decades and in some cases over a century. Below a few named varieties of tea roses that have lived to great age and are grown today.
‘Mrs. B. R. Cant’ (1901) grows large with luxuriant foliage. In spring and summer she has many soft pink, cupped, rather flat blooms, the many inner petals curled and folded. In fall these change to deep rose, even bordering on red.
‘Mrs. Dudley Cross’ (1907) grows to eight thornless feet. All season she has long stout stems of large chamois yellow flowers, some with the outer petals tinged pink and high pointed buds. In autumn she goes mad with color. No two are exactly alike. Some are even speckled and spotted with deep rose color. Ah to have a row of these a mile long with fruity fragrance.
‘Mons Tillier’ (1891). This rascally charmer is always different. The small round buds give no hint of the extravaganza of color to follow. The bloom is large, many petalled, imbricated, almost star shaped when full blown, from light rose to deep with tones of brick red, yellow and violet. It grows to eight feet and blooms steadily.
‘Sombreuil’ (1851), with round buds, opens to a large, flat bloom with many graduated petals. It is frosty white like snow on a window, but look closely – you will see a small center of dainty pink, changing in fall to terra cotta. I grow this rampant rose tied closely to an eight-foot post, where it umbrellas out in a canopy of bloom.
‘Rosette Delizy’ (1922) has perfect, medium size flowers with high pointed buds, yellow centers with a whisper of apricot, outer petals dark rose. The colors deepen with the advent of autumn. It has an ideal boutonniere bud, and almost never stops blooming.
‘Mme. Lombard’ (1877) is a low and wide plant, giving large double high pointed buds opening with reflexed petals. What color? Madame will oblige with rose, salmon rose, or sometimes flesh color with rose center and intense fragrance.
‘Marie Van Houtte’ (1871) with double yellow, pink tipped blooms is almost consistent on a huge plant. Perhaps her blooms do have slender necks . . . but who minds when they look down politely at viewers?
Duchesse de Brabont’ (1857), the one hundred year-old darling, always has satin sea shell pink cupped blooms, making delightful bouquets with sprays of heliotrope, the scents mingling pleasantly.
‘Mme. Camille’ (1871) grows to four feet, with double flame colored blooms, faintly patterned and veined in white. In spring the colors shade lighter.
Consider adding some Tea roses to your garden to pass on your rose legacy.
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