The Rose of the Year 2024 made a somewhat reluctant debut at Waterperry Gardens – beautifully healthy looking plants but with none of them in flower.
Judging by the photos, it will be worth waiting for though. ‘Meteor’® has large flowers that are a mix of golden yellow and peach with a distinctive red tinge to the petals, and a light scent. Repeat flowering, it will grow to around 70cm high and 40cm wide, making it suitable for pots or borders.
Marilyn Stevens, from Roses UK, who was unveiling the choice for 2024, explained that sunlight was needed to get the best red flush. So, tempting though it had been to put the roses into warmth to encourage some flowers, it wouldn’t have got the best out of them.
The rose has been bred by Kordes Rosen, who also produced the current Rose of the Year, ‘Peach Melba’. It’s the 10th time the breeder has topped the Rose of the Year trials – equalling the record of Dickson’s Roses, the breeder who gave us the 2022 winner, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.
The roses are chosen on a points system that gives marks for factors including flower, scent, ease of cultivation and health. Plants are trialled across the country and the winner chosen four or five years in advance. This is to give growers time to build up stock.
The Rose of the Year 2024 will be available as bare root plants this autumn and as potted roses from next spring.
Waterperry Gardens proved a lovely location for the launch and the event included the chance to look around the garden. (You can read about my autumn visit here.)
The famous long herbaceous border was already full of colour, a display that will only get better as the season progresses. With some of the herbaceous still not up to full size, it was possible to see the way the garden team, led by Pat Havers, construct their own plant supports.
Roses at Waterperry are also given special treatment with many tied down to hazel supports to encourage more flowers – a method begun when Waterperry was a horticultural school run by Beatrix Havergal and Avice Sanders. It was originally a way of covering tree stumps that they couldn’t afford to have removed.
A walk around Waterperry is always inspiring and I saw much to admire, including this wonderful rose and clematis combination near the entrance to the garden, definitely one to try.
I was also envious of the delphiniums – something I’ve never managed to grow – and added yet more names to my ‘must grow’ list of lupins.
And on a very hot day, there’s nothing nicer than lingering in The Formal Garden, one of my favourite parts, which was full of the scent of philadelphus.
You can find out more about the Rose of the Year and the British rose industry here.
Enjoyed this? You can read more of my plant chat here
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Hideous!!
I think it’s going to be an acquired taste. Not sure it’s quite for me.
Agree!
It’s not one for me, too brash. And only a light scent too. I can’t imagine how one would place it in a herbaceous border.
I always find red difficult to place in the garden. It’s the one colour I don’t tend to grow.