Strawberry Hill Rose
Strawberry Hill Rose
Not another pastel pink fluffy English rose? Yes, I've made room for David Austin's 'Strawberry Hill' rose, and I'm rather glad I did. Strawberry Hill is almost weather-proof, too, in my windy garden.
Let me explain. The stems are just strong enough to hold the thickly petalled large flower-heads after rain. Only just - but that's OK. The pink is warm enough to blush on the warmest summer day, while cool enough to look stunning with lilacs and icy blues. And there's a bonus. The autumn flowering is a richer pink - of course the light is more mellow.
And of course the form is the fluffiest of fluffy. And no colour suits being fluffy more than pastel pink does. Rose research tells me there are 85 petals, though I haven't counted them. There's a light fragrance, too, most noticeable when they're picked for a house vase. However the flowers never seem to last long inside.
Strawberry Hill Roses
I chose Strawberry Hill from a rose catalogue simply because I was enchanted with the name, imagining a lumpy rural English meadow alive with gentle Beatrix Potter-like creatures - and, of course, wild strawberries. I got that wrong! It's actually named after Horace Walpole's gothic castle in London.
