• VIRnaga

Bred by M.S. Viraraghavan (India).

Hybrid Gigantea, Shrub.  

Cream and tan, coffee .  Mild to strong fragrance.  25 to 30 petals.  Average diameter 4".  Full (26-40 petals), borne mostly solitary, classic hybrid tea, exhibition, spiral centers bloom form.  Blooms in flushes throughout the season.  Large, long buds.  

Medium, bushy, upright.  Glossy, medium green foliage.  

Height: up to 4' (up to 120cm).  

There are many of our roses growing in the Sakura Heritage Rose Garden – Kusubue no Oka ( or Kusabue , for short) . Mr Katsuhiko Maebara the Curator and leading spirit behind the garden has kindly created an entire section with our bred roses, calling it The Dreams Of India Garden. The person in charge of the maintenance of the entire rose garden ( which has sections with roses brought from Odile Masquelier’s La Bonne Maison, in Lyon, France , Helga Brichet’s Santa Maria garden in Perugia, Italy, roses from China and east Asia, collected by Yoshihiro Ueda, Yuki Mikanagi and others) is Head Gardener , Mrs Momoko Ajioka. She does a splendid job, the garden is immaculate and in splendid bloom throughout most of the year, but in summer it is a garden par excellence, of unbelievable beauty, a mecca for heritage rose lovers.

We wanted to show our appreciation for Momoko’s skill and green fingers, and what better way ( for us, at least!!) than to name a rose for her, our way of saying ‘thank you’ to her for looking after our ( and others) roses so very well.

And she is growing 4 pots of this , budded in January 2020 and blooming well already.

So our rose, codenamed VIRNAGA, is being named MOMOKO’S MAGIC TOUCH

It is a hybrid gigantea shrub, Golden Threshold x Naga Belle, fragrant, in shades of caramel cream tan and a hint of grey.

Prickles: moderate , brown, straight and pointing downwards; Rounded foliage, bronzy when new.