10 Roses I Couldn't Garden Without 🌹 // Cottoverdi

At this time of year the roses are absolutely at their peak and every year there are certain varieties that remind me exactly why I grow them. So today I thought I'd share with you those roses that I can't imagine being without. Hi everyone, my name's Annette and welcome back to Cotto Verde. The roses are looking so beautiful at the moment. We've just had a massive heat wave and I just think it suited the roses so well. Today I really wanted to talk about the 10 roses that have earned their place in my garden. I grow about 45 different varieties of roses at my last count and there may be one or two more since then. So these 10 therefore really have earned their place in my garden and I wanted to share with you why. Now they're not necessarily the healthiest roses, the ones with the best fragrance, or even the ones that are most floriferous, with the most flowers, but these have earned their place in my garden for various different reasons and I wanted to go through those with you in case you're looking for inspiration on which roses I truly value and therefore maybe you will appreciate them too. Coming in at number 10 out of about 45, this is Litchfield Angel. This is a David Austen rose. In all honesty this one took quite a long time to endear itself to me because it has this unfortunate tendency to sort of flop everywhere. So the roses are beautiful but it really was very floppy, very unappealing, unattractive looking, but as soon as I added a support at the base it gradually grew stronger and taller. So the support is now permanently entwined at the base of this rose, but you can see that it's really quite tall. I'm five foot six and so this is a gorgeous rose. It has got a little bit of black spot which I'm going to have to treat somehow, but I wanted to talk about the roses themselves. So they start off, they come out of these sort of, can I find a bud, they're kind of pale apricot colored buds. They're really, really sweet, almost buttermilk kind of colored and then the roses when they're very young really have this gorgeous apricot blush to them. They're so pretty, a really soft gentle gorgeous color and then they gradually fade to white but they're just these really fluffy blooms and you can see that this plant is covered in roses. It's absolutely gorgeous, it's still got loads of buds to come and it's got really nice strong stems now. So I've got Litchfield Angel planted with a Cotinus in the background here, it's about to come into flower and I think these creamy petals look really great against the Cotinus. I've also got it planted next to loads of Alliums and if anything the Alliums are even nicer with the Litchfield Angel roses. So the roses are a really nice size, they're quite large most of them, I think they're super pretty, just really really fluffy with these apricot buds. I just think that looks so gorgeous and you know this one's on quite a weak stem so it's a bit floppy but most of them are fully upright. So this one here is still showing some of that gorgeous apricot blush to it because it's still quite young and it hasn't faded to white yet. This one here, I mean this is probably 10 centimetres across this rose, look how big that rose is. Coming in at number nine is Spicy Parfumer. Now there are two reasons that I adore this rose, it has got the most gorgeous coloured flowers, they are absolutely enormous and they smell like the sweetest apricots or if you've ever drunk Sauternes, you know that sweet wine from France, a dessert wine, it is absolutely gorgeous. They smell like Sauternes, I think it's incredible and the flower size is phenomenal and just the shading on the rose petals. By the way this rose is taller than me, so there's one up here that is a good few inches taller than me and I'm five foot six so that's 165 centimetres, something like that. So this is a pretty big rose, so this rose here is 15 centimetres, six inches across, I've measured it, this is how big they get and they're just this gorgeous sort of apricot blush with a bit of pink in them, they're just beautiful, beautiful roses. So when they're just opening up you can see they've got a bit more apricot to them, this is just going to get bigger. It goes really, really well with the Californian honeysuckle, so the Californian honeysuckle has these sort of orangey yellow flowers and then the calyxes turn bright red, so it's looking really pretty with all of those. So I'm going to put some footage up of what this looked like last year because last year I had Thomas Edison planted in amongst this rose and I just thought it looked absolutely stunning and we can see in the background over here that that is a rose called Rosemary Harkness and it really is quite bright at this time of year, but I think it just sets this rose off so beautifully, so now this one just, you can see the blushy colour. I've also got it planted next to Coco Loco which is the rose that we can see in the background there and a peony called Bouquet Perfect, but I just think Spicy Parfuma is astonishing both for its fragrance and the colour and size of the roses. If I had to choose the most perfect pink rose in the garden it would probably be this one, the Queen of Sweden. It's a gorgeous David Austin rose. The flowers aren't that classic rounded David Austin shape, but there's something incredibly elegant about them. The colour is such a pure clear pink and the blooms sit upright on strong stems, which means they never seem to collapse or hide their faces in the way some roses do. In fact I love this rose so much that I've planted six of them here in this border and we call it the Queen of Sweden border. Now I've planted them with a Baptisia called Pink Truffles and I think they look really good together and they're also planted next to a Physicarpus or Ninebark. This one's called Lady in Red and the flowers just match so beautifully the pink of the Physicarpus and the pink of Queen of Sweden. It's just so perfect together and then I just love the way the red foliage on the Physicarpus just sets off this gorgeous pink of these roses. So the flowers aren't particularly large, I would say they're probably about five centimetres across, but just look at that pure pastel pink colour. They're so so pretty and these flower all summer long. There's never a point in time when these roses aren't in flower. This rose here on this side is Susan Daniel and it is the standout rose here in our bottom border, well one of the standout roses. This one I love it for various reasons. First of all I love this old-fashioned rose shape in perfect blends of peach and apricot. It's absolutely gorgeous and it's really floriferous, it's going to be covered in blooms, it's just starting the season. So as the flowers age they pale till they turn just sort of a blushy apricot colour. So this is Susan Daniel and I've got it planted next to Rosemary Harkness but one of the best things about Susan Daniel is that it gets full shade in the afternoon from this Prunus here. It's a flowering cherry called Jacqueline, Prunus Jacqueline, and it shades this area all afternoon so it copes really well with a little bit of shade. It does get full morning sun, I'd say sun until about three o'clock. So at the base of Susan Daniel I've planted lots of sort of purpley violet things, so I've got a Salvia called Salvito Violet which I think looks gorgeous with it. I've also got a Geranium called Anne Thompson and that sets the colors off beautifully. And then I've just got some of this electric blue Penstemon which is also gorgeous. Coming in at number six is this one, Woolerton Old Hall. This is a David Austen rose and it's still relatively new here in the garden but this is the first year I've really been able to appreciate what it can do. The flowers are wonderfully soft and blousy, they're in shades of pale apricot and blush pink and although they do have that characteristic David Austen droop, I find them completely irresistible. I especially love growing it against these self-seeded foxgloves and it's got Campanula Persefolia in the background and I think that sets them off really nicely as well. The combination feels incredibly romantic and natural. I've got a feeling this is going to become one of my favorite climbers. So the flowers I would say are medium sized but they do have a really nice scent especially when they first open. If fragrance is your priority then Harlow Carr is the rose for you. It is hard to beat, the scent just drifts across the garden. We've got it planted outside our kitchen and the scent just wafts into the kitchen on the slightest breeze. It's absolutely gorgeous. It is super prickly but how often do we have to touch the roses? Once a year just to prune them, just put on some thick gloves. I know a lot of people have commented in the past when I said I love Harlow Carr that it's too prickly for them but it's not like, you know, we're stroking the roses all the time. It is a gorgeous rose for the fragrance, I promise you. The flowers themselves are the perfect shade of sort of rich mid-pink and the plant produces an extraordinary number of blooms throughout the season. It just keeps going. Now I do deadhead mine so it repeat flowers. I mean you can see how many little buds we've got coming at the top there, so it's only just starting to flower. I've got it planted here amongst some sweet rocket. It's a lilac mix and it's just this very, very pale lilac color. I think it goes beautifully with the blooms as they start to fade from pink to a sort of lilac-y mauve color. This behind me is the generous gardener, another David Austin rose. This is one of the first roses that I planted here in the garden and every year it has impressed me more and more. It's now scrambling towards the top of this rose arch which is massive and it's covered in blooms which are really, really pretty. The flowers are a soft pale pink, I mean really pale. It's also one of the earliest roses to bloom and it repeats throughout the season. It really is stunning. Perhaps the thing I like the most about this rose is the flowers seem to hold themselves much better than many other David Austin roses and they don't immediately drop their petals. The other thing about the generous gardener is it does have a really lovely scent. So I've got it planted on both sides of this arch. I've got it planted here and over here too. The other rose on this arch is Claire Austin which is on the other side but you can see that it doesn't have as many blooms at the moment. It's not in flower yet whereas the generous gardener flowers super early. At number three is Eustacia Vi and it is in my opinion the most beautiful color of any rose that I grow. Now if we're looking at it right now you may not think that because the sun has bleached the color during the heat wave, which is the first time this has ever happened, but I am going to put up footage of how Eustacia Vi has looked in previous years and hopefully you will then see what I'm talking about. In a typical season the flowers on this rose open in the richest deep pink with warm peachy tones towards the center. The buds are beautiful too and the flowers have that wonderful full rounded David Austin form and these aren't droopy. Whenever this rose is flowering really well people notice it immediately and it's one of those roses that stops you in your tracks and I love it so much. I have got three roses planted here. I am standing here next to one of my all-time favorite roses. This is Princess Alexandra of Kent and it's extraordinary. It's a showstopper. The flowers are enormous, as big as my hand. They're 15 centimeters across, a good six inches and the depth of color in these roses is phenomenal. So this is Princess Alexandra of Kent and it starts off this gorgeous peachy rose color and then turns to a beautiful pink and then as it fades we get this lilac mauve color with so many petals, just fluffy and beautiful. Look how gorgeous that is and it really fades on the outside petals to almost white. It's so so pretty and finally if I could only keep one rose in the garden it would probably be this one. Now it's not in full bloom, it's just about to burst into bud so it's not one of the earliest to flower which is Pride and Prejudice. It doesn't have the strongest fragrance and it's certainly not short on thorns but every June it produces the most perfectly formed flowers. They are so romantic. The color's cream with the softest blush pink with a little bit of apricot and a little bit of buttermilk and the blooms have this timeless elegance. It reminds me of something you'd expect to find in a Jane Austen garden. I'm not surprised it's called Pride and Prejudice. To me this really is the ultimate romantic rose. Every flower seems perfectly shaped, perfectly colored and completely at home in my cottage garden. It really is the rose that I find myself stopping to admire most often and if I had to choose my favorite it would be this. Well I really hope you have enjoyed counting down my top 10 roses of all time that I have here in my garden. I'm sure there are loads of other roses that I can add to my collection. Do let me know if you've got a favorite and why you love it so much. I'd be really interested. Pop it in the comments below. Anyway I hope you've had fun. Maybe I've inspired you to go and grab a cup of yourself. You won't regret it. These really are favorites for a good reason. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you all next time.