Rose 'Alec's Red' - Hybrid Tea Rose (Also known as 'Cored')
A magnificent award-winning hybrid tea rose that produces outstanding large, fully double blooms in deep cherry-red with exceptional fragrance, vigorous upright growth, and excellent repeat flowering performance from July through to September, making it the quintessential classic red rose for cutting gardens and formal displays.
Headlines
- Plant Type: Hardy deciduous hybrid tea rose
- Eventual Height: 90cm
- Eventual Spread: 60cm
- Flowering Period: June to October
- Flower Colour: Deep cherry-red to crimson
- Hardiness: Hardy in the UK down to temperatures of -20 to -15 degrees Celsius (RHS hardiness rating H6)
- Growth Habit: Vigorous, upright, bushy
- Flower Type: Large, fully double, globular blooms with 30+ petals
- Awards: Royal National Rose Society Gold Medal
Overview
Rose 'Alec's Red' stands as one of the finest classic red hybrid tea roses ever developed, earning the prestigious Royal National Rose Society Gold Medal for its exceptional garden performance and outstanding fragrance. Bred by the renowned Scottish rose breeder Alec Cocker, this distinguished variety produces magnificent large, fully double flowers in deep cherry-red to crimson that emerge from almost black buds, creating spectacular individual blooms perfect for cutting and display. The healthy, glossy mid-green foliage provides excellent contrast to the deep red blooms, whilst the exceptionally strong, rich damask perfume is powerful enough to perfume an entire room. With vigorous upright growth, excellent repeat flowering from June to November, and outstanding cut flower qualities, 'Alec's Red' represents the quintessential classic red rose for traditional and contemporary gardens.
Key Features
The outstanding appeal of 'Alec's Red' lies in its magnificent large, fully double blooms that showcase deep cherry-red to crimson colouring with exceptional form and structure. Each flower displays impressive globular blooms measuring 15cm (6 inches) across with 30+ petals that emerge from distinctive almost black buds, creating dramatic individual flowers with classic hybrid tea elegance. The large blooms are carried on strong necks with excellent stem length, making them perfect for cutting and arranging. The fully double, globular form combines classic rose beauty with outstanding garden performance, whilst the exceptionally strong, rich damask perfume provides powerful fragrance that can perfume an entire room. The exceptional size, form, and fragrance make this rose particularly suitable for cutting gardens, formal displays, and anywhere classic red rose beauty is required.
Growth Characteristics
This hybrid tea rose displays a naturally vigorous, upright growth habit that makes it exceptionally suitable for formal garden applications and cut flower production. The plant develops into a strong, well-proportioned bush with excellent branching structure, reaching approximately 90cm in height with a 60cm spread. The vigorous yet manageable growing nature ensures reliable flowering whilst maintaining an attractive, substantial presence perfect for traditional and contemporary gardens. The upright, bushy growth habit makes it ideal for formal beds, cutting gardens, specimen planting, or positions where its spectacular individual blooms can be fully appreciated. The strong stems provide excellent support for the large individual flowers, making this variety particularly suitable for cut flower arrangements and formal garden displays.
Flowering Performance
From June to November, 'Alec's Red' delivers an exceptional flowering display with excellent repeat flowering throughout the growing season. The plant produces magnificent fully double blooms carried individually on strong stems, creating substantial visual impact with continuous flowering that provides garden beauty and cutting material for months. The flowers showcase deep cherry-red to crimson colouring that develops from distinctive almost black buds, creating ongoing visual interest and classic elegance. The excellent repeat-flowering nature ensures continuous blooms throughout the growing season, with the large individual flowers providing spectacular displays that capture attention with their rich colour and powerful fragrance. The extended flowering period makes this rose invaluable for maintaining consistent garden interest and cut flower supplies from mid-summer through to early autumn.
Growing Conditions
'Alec's Red' thrives in full sun positions with fertile, well-drained soil, requiring at least 6 hours of direct sunlight daily for optimal flowering performance and fragrance development. The rose adapts well to most well-drained soils but prefers an open, bright and sunny position for best results. For optimal performance, plant in fertile, well-drained soil that has been improved with organic matter, ensuring consistent moisture throughout the growing season whilst avoiding waterlogged conditions. The rose benefits from good air circulation around the foliage and performs well in various exposures, making it adaptable to different garden situations. This vigorous variety succeeds in a wide range of garden situations whilst maintaining its exceptional flowering performance and powerful fragrance.
Hardiness and Disease Resistance
This rose demonstrates exceptional hardiness suitable for growing throughout temperate regions including zones 5-10, being fully hardy and showing excellent tolerance of varying weather conditions. One of the notable features of 'Alec's Red' is its healthy, vigorous growth with good disease resistance, which reduces maintenance requirements and ensures robust performance throughout the season. The healthy, glossy mid-green foliage remains attractive and vigorous, with good natural resistance to common rose diseases when grown in appropriate conditions. The vigorous, healthy growth makes it suitable for organic gardening approaches and reduces the need for chemical interventions, making it particularly suitable for gardeners seeking classic beauty with reliable performance.
Care and Maintenance
'Alec's Red' requires standard hybrid tea maintenance to maintain optimal health and flowering performance, making it suitable for gardeners with basic rose experience. Apply a balanced rose fertiliser and mulch in late winter or early spring, followed by another application of fertiliser in early summer to support continuous flowering. Regular watering during dry periods, particularly in the first year after planting, helps establish strong root systems. Regular deadheading encourages continued flowering and maintains the spectacular display of individual blooms. Annual pruning following hybrid tea guidelines in late winter maintains the upright shape and promotes vigorous new growth for optimal flowering performance and stem quality.
Garden Applications
'Alec's Red' excels in formal and traditional garden settings where its classic red hybrid tea flowering provides exceptional elegance and fragrance. The vigorous upright growth habit makes it ideal for formal beds, cutting gardens, specimen planting, and traditional displays where its reliable performance and classic beauty can be appreciated. The deep red flowers suit both traditional and contemporary garden settings perfectly, creating elegant displays that provide stunning focal points and classic rose garden atmosphere. The rose works beautifully as specimen plants or in formal plantings, creating impressive displays that provide months of continuous classic beauty. The exceptional cut flower qualities and powerful fragrance make it particularly suitable for cutting gardens, formal rose beds, and anywhere traditional rose elegance is required.
Container Growing
The vigorous growth habit makes 'Alec's Red' suitable for large container cultivation, though its upright nature requires generous containers for best results. The rose can thrive in very large containers where soil conditions are challenging, making it suitable for urban gardening applications where sufficient space is available. Choose a container at least 60cm wide and deep with adequate drainage holes, and use high-quality multipurpose compost enriched with slow-release fertiliser. Container-grown specimens require more frequent watering and feeding than those planted in the ground, and the vigorous habit means they benefit from annual repotting or top-dressing to maintain optimal performance.
Seasonal Interest
Throughout the growing season, 'Alec's Red' provides continuous interest that evolves beautifully with the months. Spring brings the emergence of fresh, healthy, glossy mid-green foliage and the first distinctive almost black buds, building anticipation for the main flowering display. The exceptional flowering season from July to September ensures months of deep cherry-red colour, with the large individual blooms creating elegant displays that showcase remarkable classic beauty and powerful fragrance. The healthy glossy foliage remains attractive throughout the season, providing an excellent backdrop for the dramatic red flowers. Even in winter, the strong upright branching structure provides architectural interest whilst promising another year of spectacular flowering.
Fragrance Profile
'Alec's Red' features an exceptionally strong, rich damask perfume that provides outstanding garden ambience and indoor fragrance when used as cut flowers. The powerful fragrance combines classic rose scent with rich, sweet undertones that can perfume an entire room when brought indoors. This substantial fragrance makes it particularly suitable for areas where scent is important, such as near seating areas, pathways, and cutting gardens. The combination of classic visual beauty and exceptional fragrance makes this rose outstanding for sensory garden experiences and indoor arrangements.
Companion Planting
The deep cherry-red colours of 'Alec's Red' provide exceptional opportunities for companion planting with a wide range of garden plants and classic colour schemes. The rich red blooms work beautifully with white and cream flowers, creating elegant, sophisticated displays that highlight the classic beauty of both plants. The rose pairs exceptionally well with silver and grey foliage plants, creating sophisticated combinations that enhance the red colour. Blue and purple flowers create stunning complementary displays, whilst yellow flowers provide vibrant, traditional combinations. The vigorous habit makes it suitable for planting with shrubs, perennials, and other roses, creating classic gardens that provide continuous interest throughout the growing season.
Award Recognition and Heritage
'Alec's Red' has achieved the prestigious Royal National Rose Society Gold Medal, confirming its exceptional garden performance, outstanding fragrance, and enduring appeal. This recognition reflects superior performance and demonstrates the successful combination of classic beauty with reliable garden performance. Bred by the renowned Scottish rose breeder Alec Cocker with the cultivar name 'Cored', this variety represents decades of proven excellence from one of Scotland's most respected rose breeding establishments. The award recognition confirms that this rose combines stunning classic beauty with outstanding garden performance that meets the highest standards for hybrid tea excellence.
Heritage and Innovation
Bred by Alec Cocker of the famous Scottish rose breeding firm James Cocker & Sons, 'Alec's Red' represents classic hybrid tea breeding excellence that successfully combines traditional beauty with reliable garden performance. The variety demonstrates the successful integration of classic red colour with exceptional fragrance and vigorous growth, creating a rose that satisfies both traditional and contemporary gardening needs. This breeding heritage brings characteristics including exceptional fragrance intensity, reliable repeat flowering, and outstanding classic beauty that sets this variety apart as one of the finest red hybrid tea roses.
Cut Flower Excellence
One of the most appreciated features of 'Alec's Red' is its exceptional suitability for cut flower arrangements, with large blooms carried on strong stems providing long-lasting beauty indoors. The powerful fragrance ensures that arrangements provide both visual and aromatic pleasure, whilst the classic form makes it perfect for traditional flower arrangements. The cut flower excellence makes it particularly suitable for gardens where both landscape beauty and cutting requirements are important.
Classic Red Rose Character
The exceptional deep cherry-red to crimson colouring and classic hybrid tea form of 'Alec's Red' ensure that gardens benefit from the quintessential red rose experience with traditional beauty and powerful fragrance. This characteristic provides the perfect embodiment of classic rose garden elegance and ensures authentic traditional rose garden atmosphere. The classic character makes it particularly suitable for heritage gardens, traditional plantings, and anywhere authentic red rose beauty is required.
Why Choose 'Alec's Red'?
Rose 'Alec's Red' represents the perfect combination of Royal National Rose Society recognition, exceptional fragrance, and outstanding classic beauty. The large, fully double cherry-red blooms with exceptionally strong damask perfume provide continuous flowering displays from June to November, whilst the vigorous, healthy growth ensures reliable performance with standard rose care. The upright, bushy growth habit makes it suitable for various garden applications, from cutting gardens to formal displays. Whether grown for its spectacular classic red blooms, exceptional fragrance, or as a Gold Medal winner, this outstanding rose offers exceptional value that will provide years of gardening pleasure and dependable classic beauty in any garden setting.
Reasons to Buy Roses from Jacksons Nurseries
(1) ‘Excellent’ on Trustpilot
Buy with confidence from the only online rose grower rated ‘Excellent’ 4.9* on Trustpilot. We have been a trusted supplier of roses for 3 generations. We take pride in growing our own roses in the field before potting them up, allowing for meticulous quality control to sale.
(2) Best Prices Guaranteed – Direct from the Grower
Save £££s by buying direct from a grower you can trust. We’ve already price checked all of our roses against competitors so you don’t have to. We are so confident we offer the best value, if you find a rose of the same type and grade elsewhere, we’ll beat it by 10%.
(3) 12 Month Plants Guarantee
We offer a 12 month guarantee on every plant that you buy from us that we have classified as Fully Hardy. If a plant you've bought from us fails in the first year, we will either replace it or refund you. See our satisfaction guarantee page for more details and conditions.
(4) Third generation family-owned nursery specialising in roses
Jackson’s Nurseries is a 3rd generation family owned business which has been growing roses for over 60 years. Roses have always been our specialty, as you can see from the colourful array of blooms in the background to the old family photo below. Today, we offer over 200 different varieties of floribundas, hybrid teas, patio, shrub and David Austin roses. Our roses are initially grown in the field before being potted up for website dispatch.
(5) Grown at altitude to produce strong, healthy plants
Our North Staffordshire nursery is situated at 250 metres above sea level, producing strong, hardy plants that will thrive in your garden. Our nursery sits on clay, so you can be sure our roses can handle heavy soil too.
(6) Help & Advice and Aftercare
We are help to help you with any help and advice you need in choosing, planting and growing your roses before, during and after your purchase from us. The help and advice section of our website has extensive information, see below some examples of articles you may find useful:
- Different types of roses and what they each mean
- Guide to climbing roses
- Guide to floribunda roses
- Guide to hybrid tea roses
- How to plant a climbing rose
- How to grow hybrid tea roses
How our roses are supplied through the seasons
All our roses are cultivated in an open field and are carefully dug up when the weather is optimal, typically in October or November. While other nurseries supply roses bare root, once our field-grown roses have been potted up we supply them freshly potted. This better protects the roots and helps keep them moist in transit, ensuring your roses arrive as healthy as when they left our nursery. So don’t be alarmed if the compost comes away from the roots when you remove them from the pot.
The roses can remain in their pots over the winter, as long as they are properly watered and fed, but it's best to plant them out as soon as possible. If you do plant them straight away make sure the planting mix is prepared first, hold the root close to the top of the hole as you tip the pot upside down and try to keep as much compost as possible from falling away. They will already be pruned, so no additional pruning is needed except for trimming any dead tips. Regular pruning can start in late winter, the year after planting.
Rose Types
Hybrid Tea Roses (HT)
Hybrid Tea roses are probably the most popular group of roses, available in both bush and standard form they have long flower stems and shapely blooms. Blooms are typically medium to large in size, with many petals which form a distinct central cone.
Floribunda Roses (FL)
Floribunda roses bears its flowers in clusters or trusses, with several blooms open at time in each truss. A popular choice the Floribunda rose group is unrivalled for colour, reliability and longevity as a bedding display however the flower form in generally inferior to the Hybrid Tea.
Patio Roses (PATIO)
Patio roses were introduced in the 1980’s and the group now contains several popular varieties. Generally low-growing roses that were once grouped with the Floribuna group but have now been put in their own group of compact versions. Usually growing about 50cm high they make excellent plants for patio containers or at the front of borders.
Climbing Roses (CLM)
Climbing roses as the name suggests are the perfect choice for covering a wall or screen. Often grouped together with Ramblers, Climbers tend to have stiffer stems, larger flowers but smaller trusses than Ramblers.
Rambling Roses (RAM)
Rambling roses are often grouped with Climbing Roses but the ramblers tend to have a more pliable stems that can be used to run along the soil to use as groundcover or can be used to make weeping standards.
Miniature Roses (MINI)
Miniature roses have increased in popularity in recent years due to their versatility, even grown indoors as temporary pot plants that grow to a maximum height of 40cm. An ideal choice for planting in tubs, edging beds and rockeries.
English Roses (ENG)
Often referred to as Austin or David Austin Roses, English roses are hybrids of old English roses and more modern varieties bread by David Austin to provide the best of both, mixing old rose shapes and scents with more modern colour range, compact habits and repeat flowering.
Planting Advice
Roses like a generous root space, so dig a deep hole approximately twice as wide as the current root system, preferably adding composted organic matter to the soil. Never plant into frozen soil – in winter, await a frost-free period. Carefully remove the pot and gently tease the roots apart to spread them around the hole. Position the plant so that the ‘bud point’ (the place where the shoots emerge from, where the cultivated rose was grafted onto the rootstock) is at soil level. Replace the soil, firming it down gently, then water copiously. Ideally, a general purpose fertiliser should be applied to the surrounding soil as a top dressing. We also highly recommend the use of Rose Rootgrow, which provides a friendly fungus that prevents ‘rose replant syndrome’.
Buying our Roses
Pot Size
Most of our roses are supplied in a 4 litre pot although this may vary slightly depending on rose variety. If the size of pot differes significatly from 4 litres then we will make this clear somewhere on the product page.
Seasonality
Our roses are grown outdoors and as such are subject to seasonal changes. As we sell potted stock throughout the year your rose may not arrive and look like you expect it to. If you are uncertain how your rose will arrive (especially if buying for a gift) then we suggest you contact us prior to making a purchase.
Freshly Potted
Each year a new batch of roses is potted up ready for the following season. Once potted (usually November/December time) they go on sale as 'Freshly Potted'. If you purchase a freshly potted rose and plant it soon after you will find that when removing the rose from the pot there will be a lot of loose soil as the roots will not have had time to grow and bind the compost.
Pruned/Cut Back
In autumn the majority of our roses have finished flowering and begin to look untidy, at this point we prune them quite hard in preparation for the following season. We continue to sell roses throughout the year, when a rose has been pruned in such a way we will identify it has being so. If you are not sure what to expect then please ask prior to making a purchase. Some garden centres/supermarkets sell stock that has been grown abroad or in poly-tunnels so they look 'picture perfect' out of season, while this is ideal for a gift they are short lived once planted.
Aftercare
No posts found
| Size | Availability | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
In stock
|
£13.99 |