If you sat me down and forced me to pick just one rose to grow in my yard, Belinda's Dream would be the winner. It has a full, hybrid tea form of bloom, wonderful fragrance, bushy plant habit, and is almost disease free.
The blooms have tons of petals and a perfect form that is imminently worthy of a vase. The stems aren't especially long, but they are plenty adequate for cutting.
The flushes of bloom are huge and come about every month from April through November. The blooms also hold their size even in the sizzling heat of summer.
The foliage stays green and full through the whole growing season and offsets the blousy, pink blooms perfectly.
The bush form is full and lush. I recommend dead-heading the blooms back pretty far when they fade to keep the bush form even more compact. This plant can get pretty tall and wide if left completely unpruned.
Even in mid-May when blackspot and hot weather begins to take its toll on most roses, this plant is still looking fine. In short, Belinda's Dream inherits the best traits of several families of roses to make for the perfect mix. It has the size, bush form, and heat tolerance of the tea roses; the bloom form and fragrance of the hybrid teas; and the disease resistance of the china roses. I have read from other sources that this rose is also quite cold tolerant and would do well as far north as zone 5, so it's well worth a try in those regions too. It also has the perfect color and form for the traditional English cottage garden look.
4 comments:
This is lovely. I have a Belinda's Dream, going on 3 or 4 years now. This is the first year it has come close to looking like yours. But the thrips LOVE this rose. And the blooms are often brown before they fully open. How do you control the thrips?
Belinda is one of my favs, too.
I meant 'Belinda's Dream' not 'Belinda' Hybrid Musk. Sigh.
Your Louisiana Rose looks wonderful. You must have given it quite a lot of care.
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