Rose Fragrance

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell sweet. Good morning from Julia here on a glorious sunny morning at Ivor Flowerland Garden Centre and with all that rain we've had everything, all our plants, all our roses are growing absolutely a mile a minute and it's so joyous here because it's rose season and what a beautiful way to celebrate rose season by talking about fragrance in roses. If you observe people who walk past rose you will always notice that they lean over like this and sniff into the rose with the expectation that there's going to be a fragrance. Now unfortunately with some of the more modern roses, but not all of them, they can sometimes lack fragrance and that's why we absolutely love David Austin roses because David specifically bred his roses to have great fragrance. There are a few exceptions but the ones that do not have fragrance have to have something else that's absolutely exceptional about them like this one here, the beautiful single rose tottering gently by. What it lacks in fragrance it makes up in abundance with charm. There are five major fragrance groups within the roses and I've lined some examples up here. So you've got the myrrh fragrance, you've got tea fragrance, you've also got fruity fragrance, old rose fragrance and finally musk fragrance. So here we have a great example of David Austin myrrh fragrance rose and honestly it's indescribable. It's very difficult to describe this fragrance but it's one of my favorites. But if we just take a closer sniff here at this one, Septodile, it's sweet, it's almondy, it's just the most intense beautiful fragrance. And this one is carried in a lot of the David Austin roses. So for example we also have this beautiful one here Gentle Hermione and this rose here is loved by the celebrated designer who does classic English gardens Arne Maynard and he loves the lightness of the flowers and the elegance and the way it holds itself but also there's this delicious myrrh fragrance coming from this particular variety. Another favorite rose for the myrrh would be Claire Austin. Now Claire Austin has got those beautiful undertones of myrrh fragrance but in addition to that there's also heliotrope which means it will smell a little bit like cherry pie, there's vanilla and most beautiful of all this meadow sweet running through this rose as well. It's an absolute must for your collection this one in terms of fragrance. And that's the thing with the David Austin roses, in addition to having one of the major five fragrance groups within it, it also has nuances of other fragrance within the flower. So now we're just going to look at the tea fragrance and we've got two beautiful examples of the tea rose here this morning. So we've got Vanessa Bell which has that beautiful lovely soft pleasing softest of yellows. We've got great pictures of this one at the Chelsea Flower Show. I think it was one of our favorite roses at the Chelsea Flower Show and we also mentioned in another video earlier this season that we saw a lovely example of this rose at RHS Rosemore in Devon where they planted it in the cool garden but this one smells like tea. Now people often wonder where does the history, what does tea come from and there is a little bit of confusion about where the origin of the tea fragrance comes from. Some people say it's because in the olden days when they were collecting roses from other countries like China, when they brought them back they were brought back on the tea ships and that's why they're called tea. And other experts say it's because they actually smell like tea and to me honestly I can definitely, I mean I'm a tea lover we love tea, you can definitely smell tea in these roses. So this one here Golden Celebration it's just definitely got undertones of tea but there's an also another strong fragrance running through this. It's a sweet saturn wine and the fragrance that combination of the saturn wine and the tea just make this glorious. There's another old rose called Buff Beauty and honestly it's just like cracking open a new tin of old English breakfast tea. The tea is just so strong beautiful fragrance. So here we've got one of David Austin's favourite roses named after his granddaughter Olivia. You know when it's named after one of the family it's going to be an exceptional rose. And this one here has got a lovely fruity undertone to it. It's just the most amazing rounded shrub full of flower over an extended period and that lovely lovely gentle gentle pink colour is just a delightful rose. And here's another one that has got that lovely tea fragrance. It's called the Mill on the Floss and this one here with its fruitiness it kind of smells like pear drops and old sweet tea shop. Lovely colour with the lighter pink and then the darker pink on the outer pebbles. And as you can see they're just growing away like crazy in this sunshine. Harlow Carp. This particular one here is an example of the classic old rose fragrance. A lot of people really love old rose fragrance because it reminds them of their gran or an old secret garden from their past and it's just the most deep sumptuous delicious fragrance ever. And to me this one also has a spicy undertone just like Persian cuisine food. There's just that lovely hint of spiciness within it. So then even though it's got its major fragrance group there's all these extra tones going on within the rose and great complexity of fragrance. So finally the Generous Gardener. This one here can be a climber rose going really tall in your garden or you can keep it low as a bush. But the Generous Gardener is a great example of the musk fragrance within a rose. And actually the musk fragrance is slightly different because the musk fragrance comes actually from the stamens at the middle of the flower when the flower is fully open and you can smell right deep into the rose. And to me that smells a little bit like orchard, like a fresh sort of autumnal kind of fragrance is the way I describe it. Now the Generous Gardener is an exceptional rose in terms of fragrance and the reason for that is it's got the three major fragrance groups. It's got musk, myrrh and old rose running through it. And often the best time to smell these roses would be on a sunny evening and on a sunny evening the sun brings out all those oils and fragrances within the rose and then you can actually smell the nuances of the fragrance. And when you're buying a rose it's so important to actually smell the different examples and see which one you actually like. And sometimes you can only discern and approve of one fragrance when you've actually tested the other ones against that so you make up your mind. Sometimes people are disappointed when they smell roses and they say well that one is supposed to be particularly strong of old rose but I can't smell anything. There's oils within the rose and when the rose opens those oils vaporize gradually throughout the day. So earlier on the morning when a rose opens its flower first the fragrance builds up and intensifies gradually so over the first say two hours the fragrance will be the most intense. Probably for about four hours you'll get a great fragrance and then probably after seven hours the rose will still be intact but there'll be very little fragrance. So it's very important when you're actually smelling the roses that you're actually smelling a rose that's only actually literally come out into flower because otherwise you might think something hasn't got a fragrance where in fact it actually does. And there's another important factor too in terms of fragrance within roses. The weather the previous day has a great effect on the intensity of the fragrance and the reason for that is if it's a particularly sunny day the previous day and the oils within the rose is heated up when it opens the following morning there will be a greater intensity than if it was a cold day the previous day before it opened. And obviously weather affects fragrance you know when we have large downpours of rain you're not going to get the fragrances intense whereas on a beautiful morning like this this is the time to come out and actually smell the roses and actually see them because as you walk along here you can really really smell lots of fragrance within the air and it's just so delightful.