Back to latest Flower of the Week
Rosa ‘Phyllis Bide’
It is an almost random choice this week, with so much competition. Baptisia australis was runner-up, for its exquisite soft buds of pure indigo, and Aruncus sylvester, goat’s beard, because I love its creamy plumes anywhere. It works as well in leafy green glades as in the chromatic kaleidoscope of roses.
‘Phyllis Bide’, moreover, could be the pin-up of almost any week. This is how she starts; a profusion of warm colours hard to name precisely, starting close to orange and fading to pinky-white, covering a wall nine or ten feet high. Later she is more spasmodic but incredibly constant in flower, keeping going in reasonable conditions till Christmas.
The flowers are small, have little or no scent, and the bush is thin-twiggy, prickly and complicated. She is no society beauty, but a pink-cheeked country girl, thought to be the offspring of ‘Gloire de Dijon’ and something with R. multiflora blood. Why, among all the roses, choose her? Because my wife loves her best.
Back to previous Flower of the Week
|
|
