The Amazing Duchesse de Brabant

Let me introduce you to this old tea rose Duchesse de Brabant. It has a reputation for flowering 360 days a year and here they are in full bloom at the end of winter.

Rounded and bushy with lovely pink ball shaped flowers, it could be the perfect rose… except for two things. It has no fragrance and I can never work out when I should prune it.

 

I first saw these roses (or so I thought) in the rose gardens in the Adelaide botanic gardens (along with Sharifa Asma). It was love at first sight for both and I remember stalking back and forth between the two of them trying to choose one or the other. I ended up with both.

I have had these plants for around 3 years now I think. Because they really don’t have a dormant season in Perth they grow quite quickly to around waist high.

There is also a climbing version which my gardening neighbour has growing in his front yard. As it turns out, I must have spotted them before seeing them in the botanic gardens after all. I was researching the climber earlier this year, deciding on whether to try growing one over my shed (I decided yes). The climber is a sport of the shrub form which was discovered in Australia (I am suddenly filled with the urge to punch the air in a show of national pride, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…). It also goes by the name of Comtesse de Labarthe.