Zéphirine Drouhin and Clematis
It’s a bit early for roses to be blooming but it’s been that sort of a spring. I have a couple roses that have flowers up against the house. One rose, ‘Roseraie De l’Hay’ is about to start blooming. Ralph, on the other hand has quite a few already out in his back yard.
Back about ten years ago (I don’t remember precisely) he asked me what roses he should plant and I gave him a list of six or seven to choose from. Instead of choosing, though, he planted them all. They are mostly doing very well and a couple are quite huge. This one is ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’ and it’s a very nice Bourbon rose bred by Bizot in France in 1868. If you are looking for a good, reliable rose with an amazing, damask fragrance, this may be the rose for you. It does suffer pretty badly from blackspot and will be mostly leafless by the end of the summer but it grows so vigorously that it doesn’t seem to do any lasting harm.
The roses are the cerise-pink flowers whilte the white flowers are clematis, which is a very good companion to roses.