From an old favourite last month, we now feature for November a rose that was only released onto the market last year, but is already looking like it will become a very popular rose with rose lovers in New Zealand.
Discovered as a naturally occurring sport or mutation of the popular rose ‘Paddy Stephens’, ‘Hamilton Gardens’ shares many of its attributes including fantastic disease tolerance, long stems ideal for picking and well formed blooms. The only difference is the colour which is an appealing blend of apricot, pink and cream. Should be grown in every garden where it will grown to about the same height as Paddy Stephens, about 1.5m.
Whilst only on the market for its second year, New Zealand rosarians have already shown that they think that ‘Hamilton Gardens’ is a winner by picking it as the 10th most popular Hybrid Tea rose in their Top Favourites list for 2009. It usually takes several years for new roses to show up on the top favourites list.
Named after the place where it was discovered, Hamilton Gardens is one of Hamilton’s most popular tourist attractions and is also home to the Rogers Rose Garden which received the Garden of Excellence Award from the World Federation of Rose Societies in 2006.
Hamilton Gardens is also home to the Pacific Rose Bowl Festival and the New Zealand Rose of the Year competition which is being held from November 11 – 15 and will also incorporate the 2009 Daltons National Spring Rose Show and Convention held in the Hamilton Gardens Pavilion.