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'Vanessa Bell' rose Reviews & Comments
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Blooms are much smaller than most yellow Austin's.
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After 3 seasons, the height and width of this rose in August of the 3rd year is 4.5 feet x 4.5 feet.. with pruning back to 3 x 3 feet in winter, and light pruning after the first flush... [as grown in southern England]
The width shown as 30'' in the description I would say is for the first year only...
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Thanks Marlorena. We’ve changed the width to that suggested by David Austin Roses: 3 feet.
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..well... I like it... but it needs a lot of water... I can't imagine growing this rose in a hot dry garden without a watering system in place...
edit Nov 4 2019
..sorry to disagree with those below but I am finding this rose to be an Austin 'gem'... even the scent is intriguing and full of interest, without knowing exactly how to describe it...
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Initial post
20 JUN 18
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* This post deleted by user *
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To me it is slightly citrus and slightly dull, a little like a very cheap white wine that has been left in the glass over night.
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#2 of 15 posted
20 JUN 18 by
HubertG
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Andrew, I want to see that fragrance description on the rose label hahaha.
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It's a bloody boring rose, ten-a-penny at any garden centre. It was a gift for my birthday last year. I don't want to seem ungrateful but it was only given to me because I used to be the gardener at Charleston Farmhouse. I am too green fingered to get away with saying it just died so I have to keep the thing alive, and what's more, David Austin roses don't grow well in my garden so I have to lavish untold amounts of care to keep it alive when I could be spending time on far more interesting roses.
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#4 of 15 posted
20 JUN 18 by
Hamanasu
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Thank you for the reply. I wanted a pimrose/pale lemon yellow coloured rose, and it was a toss between this and Harkness’s Diamond Days. The claim about its floriferousness and scent made me go for Vanessa Bell, but I too am a little underwhelmed...
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Is 'Lemon Spice' available where you live?
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#6 of 15 posted
20 JUN 18 by
Hamanasu
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Alas, no, I’m in the UK, but thank you for the suggestion. Another primrose yellow I like is Alexander Hill Gray, which is available from Peter Beales and reportedly strongly fragrant of tea, but I read it balls in the rain, which makes it a poor choice for my climate. I’ll probably replace Vanessa Bell with another recent rose, Diamond Days, and see if I like that better.
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Do you like 'Agnes'? It might be a bit too dark for what you want and it only repeats slightly later on but the smell is very pleasant.
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#8 of 15 posted
20 JUN 18 by
Hamanasu
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I have just seen your pics of Agnes and in your garden it’s certainly gorgeous! But I grow my roses in pots on a patio, and rugosas tend to grow too large for that kind of treatment (though I do have an own-root rose a parfum de l’hay happy in an 18 litre pot).
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#9 of 15 posted
20 JUN 18 by
HubertG
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Hamanasu, I grow Alexander Hill Gray, and it does ball a bit, but I have never found it has a strong fragrance, despite the descriptions, and I have a fairly good nose too.
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#10 of 15 posted
20 JUN 18 by
Hamanasu
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Thank you for the info -- that’s actually really useful. Do you have Mrs B R Cant? It seems to have little scent according to lots of people, but in my garden it is one of the best endowed -- tea with passion fruit. If (like AHG) Mrs BRC has little scent in your garden, then it might be that some teas behave differently in cooler climates than Australia? In the wonderful Aussie book on Tea Roses, Lady Hillingdon is also described as having ‘moderate’ scent, but the half open bud is always powerfully scented here in England... (I love teas, by the way, and I wish I had discovered them during the decade when I lived in Sydney... I realised, retrospectively, that I once saw some magnificent plants of tea roses in Rookwood Necropolis).
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#11 of 15 posted
21 JUN 18 by
HubertG
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My sister grows a large bush of Mrs B R Cant, and it does have a wonderful scent here. There is something 'fruity' underlying it, can't say passionfruit has occurred to me, but it could be in the mix and it just never dawned on me. I'll make a note next time I smell it. I find that it the warmer weather here the scent of teas can be somewhat fleeting, and can be more persistently stronger in cooler whether, but I'm afraid Alexander Hill Gray is persistently weak generic tea scent all year for me. Some Teas like Mme Lombard seem to release more scent in warmer weather. Mine's flowering at the moment, flowers lighter than usual (almost apricot) but not much scent. My Lady Hillingdon is out in bloom too (and it's winter solstice time here) and the colour is richer and scent wonderful. I always detect apricots in it.
Bummer about not knowing about teas when you lived in Sydney.
Incidentally, Lemon Spice was a rose I was thinking of getting this season, but I think only one nursery here has it and I'm not sure of it's availability.
I just wanted to add that AHG would grow well in a pot if you do decide to give it a try. It is a beautifully formed rose.
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#12 of 15 posted
21 JUN 18 by
Hamanasu
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My space is so limited I must be very selective, so if AHG has little scent, I might have to give it a miss, as I am determined to only grow well scented roses. (Mme Antoine Mari is the notable exception: it’s just too perfect, even with no/little/fleeting scent.) I agree AHG’s form looks beautiful, though — it reminds me a little of the (gorgeously scented) tea-noisette Marechal Niel, which I once grew (and gave up after a move, as its new situation didn’t make it happy, and it stopped giving me the perfect blooms I used to get in the first couple of years.) My Lady Hillingdon is also in bloom right now: what a luxury for you to have it blooming in winter. The scent to me is ‘smoky’ and similar to tobacco (in a nice/addictive way), though occasionally I too can detect apricots. It’s great you can relate to my experience of the delights of Mrs B R Cant’s fragrance. I love how this thread self-hijacked away from Vanessa Bell and towards teas. :)
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I am conscious that hijacking means any future member seeking info on 'Vanessa Bell' has to wade through lots of irrelevant material to that rose.
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#14 of 15 posted
21 JUN 18 by
Hamanasu
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That’s true, sorry. If you’d like me to delete the irrelevant posts, please let me know.
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That is kind of you Hamanasu. HelpMeFind is a little different from other forums in that theoretically, all info exchanged should be relating to the pertinent rose. But it is difficult to restrain oneself sometimes - we go enthusiastically overboard in our love for roses.
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#16 of 15 posted
21 JUN 18 by
Hamanasu
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That makes sense. I tried to remove the irrelevant posts but I’m afraid all I seemed to achieve was make the original (and relevant) one disappear — all the others are still there and won’t go away. I suspect a glitch in how the delete function operates?
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