Rose 'It's a Wonderful Life' - Floribunda Rose
A spectacular award-winning Floribunda rose that produces an abundance of fully double blooms in rich creamy apricot tones, fading to delicate pink at the outer petals, combining exceptional flower power with outstanding disease resistance and continuous flowering performance throughout the growing season.
Headlines
- Plant Type: Hardy deciduous Floribunda rose
- Eventual Height: 1m
- Eventual Spread: 80cm
- Flowering Period: July to September
- Flower Colour: Rich creamy apricot fading to pink with peachy-orange tones
- Hardiness: Hardy in the UK down to temperatures of -20 to -15 degrees Celsius (RHS hardiness rating H6)
- Growth Habit: Upright, bushy, robust-growing
- Flower Type: Large, fully double blooms with up to 60 petals
- Awards: Rose of the Year 2022
Overview
Rose 'It's a Wonderful Life' is a truly outstanding Floribunda rose that exemplifies modern rose breeding excellence, winning the prestigious Rose of the Year award in 2022. This distinguished variety, bred by Colin Dickson, produces magnificent fully double blooms in rich creamy apricot tones that fade to delicate pink at the outer petals, with peachy-orange highlights that vary in intensity according to temperature fluctuations. The most striking feature is its exceptional combination of spectacular flower power with excellent disease resistance, complemented by lustrous glossy green foliage that provides perfect contrast to the vibrant blooms. With outstanding health, upright bushy growth habit, and continuous repeat flowering performance from June to September, this rose represents one of the finest examples of contemporary Floribunda roses for modern gardens. Each fully-petalled bloom can grow up to 10cm across, creating substantial visual impact with delightful light fragrance.
Key Features
The outstanding appeal of 'It's a Wonderful Life' lies in its profuse fully double blooms that showcase spectacular flower power with substantial visual impact displayed in abundant clusters. Each bloom displays rich creamy apricot colouring that fades to delicate pink at the outer petals, creating sophisticated colour transitions enhanced by peachy-orange highlights. The flowers combine warm apricot and salmon tones with soft pink edges, creating harmonious colour combinations that add warmth and elegance to the garden display. The fully double flower form with up to 60 petals per bloom, combined with continuous flowering habit, excellent disease resistance, and delightful light fragrance makes this rose suitable for a wide range of garden applications, from cutting gardens to mixed borders and formal displays.
Growth Characteristics
This Floribunda rose displays a naturally upright, bushy growth habit that makes it exceptionally suitable for modern garden applications and formal displays. The plant develops into a strong, well-proportioned specimen with excellent branching structure and robust performance. The upright yet bushy nature ensures reliable flowering whilst maintaining an attractive, manageable size perfect for contemporary gardens. The strong growth habit makes it ideal for mixed borders, formal rose gardens, or positioning where its spectacular beauty and abundant flowering can be fully appreciated. The robust stems provide excellent support for the large, heavy blooms, making this variety particularly suitable for cut flower production.
Flowering Performance
From June through to September, 'It's a Wonderful Life' delivers an exceptional flowering display that continues consistently throughout the growing season. The plant produces magnificent fully double blooms held in large clusters, creating substantial visual impact with continuous flowering from early summer into mid-autumn. The flowers showcase rich creamy apricot colouring that fades to delicate pink with peachy-orange highlights, creating ongoing visual interest and sophisticated elegance. The repeat-flowering nature ensures continuous colour throughout the growing season, with the abundant blooms providing a spectacular display that captures attention with its warm colours and delightful light fragrance. The extended flowering period provides valuable long-season garden interest and excellent cutting potential.
Growing Conditions
'It's a Wonderful Life' thrives in full sun positions with fertile, humus-rich, moist but well-drained soil, requiring at least 6 hours of direct sunlight daily for optimal flowering performance and colour development. The rose adapts well to various soil types including acid, alkaline, and neutral conditions, providing adequate drainage is maintained. For best results, plant in fertile, well-drained soil that has been improved with organic matter, ensuring consistent moisture throughout the growing season. The rose benefits from good air circulation around the foliage and performs well in various exposures including south, west, and east-facing aspects, tolerating both exposed and sheltered conditions.
Hardiness and Disease Resistance
This rose demonstrates exceptional hardiness suitable for growing throughout the UK, being fully hardy (H6 rating) and showing excellent tolerance of typical British weather conditions. One of the most notable features of 'It's a Wonderful Life' is its excellent disease resistance, which significantly reduces maintenance requirements and ensures healthy growth throughout the season. The healthy, lustrous, glossy green foliage remains attractive and vigorous, with outstanding natural resistance to common rose diseases. This exceptional disease resistance makes it an excellent choice for organic gardening approaches and eliminates the need for chemical interventions, making it particularly suitable for busy gardeners seeking low-maintenance excellence.
Care and Maintenance
'It's a Wonderful Life' requires minimal maintenance to maintain optimal health and flowering performance, making it ideal for busy gardeners and cutting enthusiasts. Apply a balanced fertiliser and mulch in late winter or early spring, followed by another application of balanced 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. The excellent disease resistance means this variety requires minimal intervention, making it an easy-care option. Regular deadheading encourages continued flowering, whilst proper pruning in late winter maintains the upright shape and promotes vigorous new growth with abundant blooms.
Garden Applications
'It's a Wonderful Life' excels in formal rose gardens where its upright growth habit and abundant flowering provide exceptional visual impact. The robust growth habit makes it ideal for mixed borders, cottage gardens, and formal displays where its spectacular beauty can be appreciated. The rich apricot flowers with pink edges suit both contemporary and traditional garden settings perfectly, whilst the manageable size makes it excellent for positioning as specimen plants or in group plantings. The rose works beautifully in formal plantings, creating impressive displays that combine visual drama with sophisticated colour combinations. The continuous flowering makes it particularly suitable for gardens requiring consistent colour throughout the season.
Container Growing
The upright growth habit and excellent disease resistance make 'It's a Wonderful Life' exceptionally well-suited to container cultivation for patios and formal areas. The rose thrives in large containers on balconies, terraces, and areas where soil conditions are challenging, making it perfect for urban gardening applications. Choose a container at least 50cm 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, but the upright habit means they remain attractive whilst delivering exceptional flowering performance throughout the season.
Seasonal Interest
Throughout the growing season, 'It's a Wonderful Life' provides continuous interest that evolves beautifully with the months. Spring brings the emergence of fresh, healthy, lustrous green foliage and the first flower buds, building anticipation for the main flowering display. The extended flowering season from June to September ensures months of colour and visual interest, with the rich apricot blooms fading to pink creating harmonious displays that showcase remarkable consistency. The healthy foliage remains attractive throughout the season, providing an excellent backdrop for the spectacular double flowers. Even in winter, the strong branching structure provides architectural interest whilst promising another year of spectacular flowering.
Cut Flower Value
The exceptional cut flower value of 'It's a Wonderful Life' makes it outstanding for indoor arrangements and floral displays. The large, fully double blooms with up to 60 petals per flower provide exceptional longevity when cut, with the substantial size and sophisticated colouring making them perfect for both formal and informal arrangements. The continuous blooming habit from June to October makes this rose invaluable for cutting gardens, providing abundant flowers throughout the growing season. The sturdy stems and long-lasting blooms make it particularly suitable for special occasions and regular household arrangements, whilst the delightful light fragrance adds extra appeal to indoor displays.
Fragrance Profile
'It's a Wonderful Life' features a delightful light fragrance that complements its spectacular visual display without overwhelming other garden plants. The subtle, pleasant scent provides gentle garden ambience whilst allowing the magnificent blooms and sophisticated colouring to take centre stage. This balanced approach to fragrance makes it particularly suitable for mixed plantings and areas where multiple fragrant plants are grown together, creating harmonious scent combinations throughout the garden.
Companion Planting
The rich apricot and pink colours of 'It's a Wonderful Life' provide excellent opportunities for companion planting with a wide range of garden plants. The warm apricot tones work beautifully with blue and purple flowers, creating complementary displays that add depth and sophistication to garden schemes. The rose pairs exceptionally well with herbaceous perennials and ornamental grasses, creating dynamic borders that provide interest throughout the growing season. Silver and grey foliage plants provide sophisticated contrasts, whilst cream and white flowers create fresh, elegant combinations. The upright habit makes it suitable for planting with lower-growing perennials and annuals, creating layered displays that maximise visual impact.
Award Recognition and Heritage
'It's a Wonderful Life' has received the prestigious Rose of the Year award in 2022, providing confidence in its exceptional garden performance and outstanding flower quality. The Rose of the Year award is given only to roses that demonstrate excellent performance in garden conditions after undergoing two years of trials and assessments by specialist teams. This recognition marks this variety as one of exceptional merit, combining stunning beauty with outstanding garden performance that meets the highest standards for both visual appeal and reliable cultivation.
Breeding Excellence and Innovation
Bred by renowned rose breeder Colin Dickson and introduced in 2022, 'It's a Wonderful Life' represents cutting-edge Floribunda rose breeding that combines spectacular flower power with modern garden performance. The breeding programme has successfully created a variety that demonstrates exceptional disease resistance, continuous flowering habit, and sophisticated colouring that sets it apart from conventional Floribunda roses. This modern breeding approach ensures reliable performance whilst delivering the spectacular visual impact that makes this rose truly special.
Unique Colour Evolution
The most distinctive feature of 'It's a Wonderful Life' is its spectacular colour evolution from rich creamy apricot to delicate pink at the outer petals, with peachy-orange highlights that vary according to temperature conditions. This unique characteristic creates flowers that are constantly changing and remarkably striking throughout their development. The colour transitions add depth and sophistication to the blooms whilst creating ongoing visual interest that keeps gardens looking fresh and dynamic throughout the flowering season.
Continuous Bloom Performance
The exceptional continuous flowering habit of 'It's a Wonderful Life' ensures that gardens remain colourful and vibrant from early summer through to mid-autumn. The ability to produce flowers continuously throughout this extended period makes it invaluable for maintaining consistent garden interest and cutting flower supplies. This reliable performance makes it particularly suitable for situations where consistent colour and floral displays are required throughout the growing season.
Why Choose 'It's a Wonderful Life'?
Rose 'It's a Wonderful Life' represents the perfect combination of award-winning beauty, exceptional flower power, and outstanding garden performance. The large fully double blooms with their rich apricot colouring fading to pink provide continuous flowering displays from June through to September, whilst the excellent disease resistance ensures healthy growth with minimal maintenance. The upright, bushy growth habit makes it suitable for gardens of all sizes, from formal rose gardens to mixed borders and container cultivation. Whether grown for its spectacular double blooms, exceptional cut flower value, or as a stunning Rose of the Year winner, this innovative rose offers outstanding visual and practical value that will provide years of gardening pleasure and beautiful floral displays.
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
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