Day 11 of this Rose Advent 💫

I didn’t know this rose until I saw it in bloom for the first time about ten years ago, in the most exquisite flowering around the front door of Mary-Jane Paterson, my Rhubarb Rhubarb co-author. After poring over books we identified it as the noisette Rosa ‘Desprez à Fleur Jaune’ - though I think she’d be better named Desprez à Fleur Apricoty-Peachy-Pinky-Creamy-Beige.

Noisette roses aren’t, as you’d think, anything to do with little nuts. They’re actually named after the French nurserymen Louis and Philippe Noisette. Louis in Paris sent an ‘Old Blush’ China rose to his brother Philippe in South Carolina in about 1802. Philippe gave a cutting to his neighbour, a farmer called John Champneys. On his farm it JUST HAPPENED to cross with Rosa moschata to produce ‘Champneys’ Pink Climber’.

Philippe, in great excitement, sent seeds of this to Louis, one of which produced the repeat-flowering climber Blush Noisette. And then there followed many, one of whom was this gorgeous rose.

True story. And now she’s in my garden. There’s always room.

You HAVE to have this rose. A fabulous old climber which gives impossibly-fabulously perfumed flowers all summer - but swipe along and just look at the shape of those flowers. It’s as if someone has decided to make Rose-Flower Pastry - they’ve come along and just gently squished the bud, and so you get this kind of crimped bloom, looking like a gardenia-ish.

And how she then opens out - just look at the first picture again.