Rose 'Zephirine Drouhin' - Climbing Bourbon Rose
A legendary heritage climbing rose producing abundant semi-double cherry-pink blooms with overwhelming Bourbon fragrance, complemented by glossy dark green foliage with copper-purple new growth, completely thornless canes, and exceptional repeat flowering performance, making it perfect for walls, pergolas, arches, and bringing classic heritage beauty to garden structures.
Headlines
- Plant Type: Hardy deciduous climbing bourbon rose
- Eventual Height: 4.5 metres
- Eventual Spread: 2 metres
- Flowering Period: June to September
- Flower Colour: Deep cerise-pink to cherry-pink
- Hardiness: Hardy in the UK down to temperatures of -20 to -15 degrees Celcius (RHS hardiness rating H6)
- Growth Habit: Vigorous climbing with completely thornless canes
- Flower Type: Large semi-double blooms 8cm wide with up to 30 petals
- Fragrance: Overwhelmingly strong Bourbon fragrance with raspberry notes
Overview
Rose 'Zephirine Drouhin' stands as the legendary completely thornless climbing rose, producing abundant semi-double cherry-pink blooms with exceptional heritage character and outstanding garden performance since 1868. This magnificent Bourbon variety creates unforgettable garden experiences with its large 8cm semi-double flowers that display classic heritage charm, where each bloom features deep cerise-pink to cherry-pink petals with high-centred formation that create stunning visual effects throughout the extended flowering season from spring to autumn. The overwhelmingly strong Bourbon fragrance with raspberry notes makes this rose legendary among gardeners for its exceptional aromatic intensity. The flowers are produced continuously with excellent repeat flowering, opening from beautifully formed buds that add anticipation to the magnificent display. The powerful Bourbon fragrance complements the spectacular visual impact, creating memorable garden experiences that enhance both heritage cottage gardens and contemporary landscape designs with exceptional historical significance and unmatched aromatic appeal.
Key Features
The outstanding appeal of 'Zephirine Drouhin' lies in its abundant semi-double blooms that showcase perfect heritage rose character with overwhelming fragrance and substantial garden presence whilst being completely thornless. Each flower displays classic high-centred formation with up to 30 petals featuring deep cerise-pink to cherry-pink colouring in harmonious arrangements, creating blooms of remarkable visual beauty and exceptional aromatic appeal. The overwhelmingly strong Bourbon fragrance with raspberry notes provides legendary aromatic experiences that maintain their intensity throughout the flowering season, creating lasting scented impressions that symbolise heritage garden tradition and romantic garden atmosphere. The flowers are produced abundantly with excellent repeat blooming, opening from attractively formed buds that add elegant anticipation to the fragrant heritage display. The powerful Bourbon fragrance complements the spectacular visual impact, creating outstanding garden experiences that enhance both structural garden applications and everyday garden enjoyment with unmatched aromatic intensity and heritage charm.
Growth Characteristics
The vigorous completely thornless canes provide exceptional climbing capabilities whilst maintaining user-friendly character, making this variety uniquely valuable for walls, pergolas, arches, and garden structures where substantial coverage and safe maintenance are essential. The glossy dark green foliage with striking copper-purple new growth is produced abundantly throughout the growing season, creating an attractive healthy backdrop that perfectly complements the cherry-pink blooms whilst providing year-round visual interest and excellent appearance. The vigorous climbing habit ensures reliable flowering whilst creating substantial garden impact that fits well into diverse garden settings from walls and boundaries to structural features, with the considerable size making it suitable for established gardens and prominent heritage applications where its magnificent flowering display and historical significance can be fully appreciated.
Flowering Performance
From spring through to autumn, 'Zephirine Drouhin' delivers exceptional flowering displays with excellent repeat blooming that continues reliably throughout the extended growing season. The plant produces abundant spectacular large blooms consistently, creating substantial visual and aromatic impact with outstanding performance that ensures ongoing garden beauty and heritage significance. The individual blooms develop with classic high-centred formation, allowing gardeners to appreciate the deep cerise-pink colouring and overwhelming Bourbon fragrance, whilst the semi-double structure with up to 30 petals ensures each flower maintains its beautiful appearance and aromatic appeal for extended periods. The excellent repeat flowering nature ensures spectacular displays throughout the season, with the ongoing fragrant blooms providing persistent focal points that enhance garden spaces with their heritage beauty and legendary perfume.
Growing Conditions
'Zephirine Drouhin' thrives in full sun to partial shade with well-drained soil, demonstrating remarkable adaptability to various growing conditions including poor soils and challenging aspects where many roses struggle. The rose adapts exceptionally well to different soil types and responds excellently to both sunny and partially shaded locations, making it particularly valuable for north-facing walls and difficult positions. For best results, provide sturdy structural support with good air circulation, incorporating well-rotted organic matter to support the vigorous flowering and healthy foliage development. The variety benefits from regular feeding and responds well to standard climbing rose care practices, whilst its tolerance for poor conditions makes it suitable for diverse garden situations from challenging walls to heritage garden features where adaptability and reliable performance are essential.
Hardiness and Disease Resistance
'Zephirine Drouhin' demonstrates good disease resistance with particular resilience to black spot, powdery mildew, and Japanese beetles, maintaining healthy growth throughout the season. The variety shows excellent tolerance to seasonal variations and weather conditions, making it highly reliable for gardeners seeking dependable heritage plantings with classic character. The glossy dark green foliage remains attractive and healthy with natural disease resistance, making it an excellent choice for gardeners seeking reliable thornless climbing plantings with manageable maintenance requirements. The hardy constitution ensures consistent performance across different growing conditions including challenging aspects, supporting reliable fragrance production and flowering performance throughout the growing season.
Care and Maintenance
'Zephirine Drouhin' requires standard climbing rose maintenance to achieve optimal flowering performance and fragrance intensity whilst benefiting from its completely thornless character that makes all maintenance tasks significantly easier and safer. Apply balanced rose fertiliser in early spring and again in early summer, with regular deep watering during dry periods to support the vigorous growth and abundant flower production. The good disease resistance and thornless nature mean this variety requires minimal intervention beyond standard care practices, making it suitable for gardeners seeking reliable heritage climbing plantings. Regular deadheading encourages continued flowering and maintains the spectacular fragrant display throughout the season, whilst annual pruning maintains the vigorous climbing shape and promotes strong new growth for optimal flowering performance.
Garden Applications
'Zephirine Drouhin' excels in heritage garden applications and romantic garden features where its legendary performance and thornless character can be fully appreciated. The outstanding cherry-pink blooms with overwhelming Bourbon fragrance make it ideal for walls, pergolas, arches, and garden structures where continuous flowering and intense aromatic appeal are essential for heritage garden authenticity. Perfect for training on walls, boundaries, and structural features, this rose provides exceptional visual impact with thornless stems and excellent repeat flowering that creates ongoing seasonal highlights. The vigorous growth and abundant flowering make it particularly suitable for heritage climbing applications and romantic garden settings, whilst the overwhelming fragrance ensures it provides memorable aromatic experiences that define traditional garden character and Bourbon rose excellence.
Container Growing
The vigorous climbing habit can be accommodated in very large containers for heritage displays or where ground planting is not possible. The rose requires substantial containers at least 60cm wide and deep with excellent drainage, using high-quality multipurpose compost enriched with slow-release fertiliser. Container-grown specimens require significantly more frequent watering and feeding than ground-planted roses, but the legendary thornless qualities and overwhelming fragrance make this worthwhile for special heritage plantings and romantic garden features where the historical significance enhances the garden experience.
Seasonal Interest
Throughout the growing season, 'Zephirine Drouhin' provides exceptional seasonal interest with continuous fragrant flowering and attractive heritage presence. Spring brings the emergence of glossy dark green foliage with striking copper-purple new growth and the first beautifully formed buds, building anticipation for the main fragrant flowering display. The spectacular cherry-pink blooms from spring through autumn provide months of heritage colour and overwhelming Bourbon fragrance that maintains consistency throughout the season, creating persistent aromatic impact. The attractive foliage with copper-purple new growth provides striking visual interest throughout the season, whilst the vigorous thornless climbing structure provides attractive architectural presence during dormant periods and supports year-round garden appeal.
Fragrance Profile
'Zephirine Drouhin' features overwhelmingly strong Bourbon fragrance with raspberry notes that defines the garden experience and creates legendary aromatic impact throughout garden spaces. The exceptional fragrance intensity adds unmatched scented appeal to climbing structures whilst making this rose particularly valuable for areas where powerful heritage fragrance contributes to authentic garden atmosphere. The overwhelming Bourbon fragrance with raspberry notes enhances garden atmosphere significantly and makes this variety essential for heritage gardens where legendary scent contributes to the overall romantic experience, particularly during evening garden enjoyment when the powerful perfume creates unforgettable aromatic memories that epitomise Bourbon rose tradition.
Companion Planting
The deep cerise-pink to cherry-pink colouring of 'Zephirine Drouhin' provides excellent opportunities for companion planting with complementary garden plants and heritage colour schemes. The cherry-pink tones work beautifully with purple and blue perennials for traditional contrast that highlights both the heritage character and overwhelming fragrance, whilst silver and grey foliage plants complement the pink hues perfectly. White and cream flowers provide harmonious displays that allow the cherry-pink colours to dominate, whilst the overwhelming fragrance makes it suitable for planting with other heritage aromatic plants that enhance the garden's romantic atmosphere throughout the growing season.
Heritage and Historical Significance
One of the most valued features of 'Zephirine Drouhin' is its exceptional heritage significance as the legendary thornless climbing rose bred by Bizot in 1868, making it uniquely meaningful for heritage and romantic garden displays. The deep cherry-pink beauty and overwhelming Bourbon fragrance represent the finest achievements in 19th-century Bourbon rose breeding, symbolising heritage garden tradition, romantic garden authenticity, and classic climbing rose character. This historical significance, combined with spectacular garden performance, makes it particularly appealing to gardeners seeking roses with both meaningful heritage importance and practical thornless excellence for traditional garden themes and romantic landscape applications.
Thornless Advantage
The completely thornless canes make 'Zephirine Drouhin' uniquely valuable for applications where safety and easy maintenance are essential considerations. This characteristic makes it particularly suitable for areas near pathways, seating areas, and children's gardens whilst providing all the benefits of a vigorous climbing rose without the challenges associated with thorny stems.
Cut Flower Excellence
The exceptional cut flower qualities make 'Zephirine Drouhin' particularly valuable for gardeners who wish to bring heritage beauty and overwhelming Bourbon fragrance indoors for special occasions and romantic arrangements. The thornless stems, abundant large fragrant blooms with cherry-pink colouring, and powerful Bourbon fragrance create outstanding floral displays that provide lasting indoor enjoyment whilst maintaining the heritage significance of the spectacular colour combinations. The excellent repeat flowering ensures plenty of blooms for cutting whilst maintaining climbing displays, making it ideal for both garden beauty and exceptional heritage arrangements that provide powerful aromatic statements for indoor spaces.
Exhibition and Show Potential
The spectacular semi-double blooms with up to 30 petals and perfect heritage rose form make 'Zephirine Drouhin' an excellent choice for exhibition purposes and flower shows where heritage character and overwhelming fragrance create memorable displays. The large 8cm blooms with their deep cherry-pink colouring provide consistent show-quality flowers that demonstrate the finest achievements in Bourbon rose breeding, making this variety particularly valuable for competitive gardening and horticultural exhibitions where heritage significance and fragrance intensity contribute to judging criteria.
Shade Tolerance and Adaptability
The remarkable tolerance for partial shade and poor soils makes 'Zephirine Drouhin' suitable for challenging growing positions where many roses struggle to perform effectively. This adaptability extends its heritage garden applications to diverse locations whilst maintaining spectacular flowering performance and overwhelming fragrance.
Why Choose 'Zephirine Drouhin'?
Rose 'Zephirine Drouhin' represents the perfect combination of heritage excellence, thornless convenience, and overwhelming fragrance. The abundant semi-double blooms in deep cherry-pink with their legendary Bourbon fragrance provide unforgettable displays from spring through autumn, whilst the vigorous thornless growth and good adaptability ensure dependable performance with standard climbing rose maintenance. Whether grown for heritage gardens, romantic displays, thornless climbing applications, or simply for its exceptional beauty and historical significance, this outstanding legendary climbing rose offers distinctive value that combines meaningful heritage importance with practical thornless excellence, creating lasting memories and enduring beauty that celebrates over 150 years of garden tradition with overwhelming fragrance and romantic charm that enhances any garden setting where heritage significance and aromatic intensity are appreciated together.
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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