Rose 'Dearest' – The Gold Medal Winning Salmon-Pink Floribunda with Exquisite Fragrance
Rose 'Dearest' stands as one of the most beloved and accomplished roses in the floribunda class, earning its prestigious reputation as a Gold Medal winner from the Royal National Rose Society. This exceptional variety produces abundant clusters of stunning salmon-pink blooms with rich, spicy fragrance that creates a warm and sophisticated garden display. With its award-winning credentials, excellent repeat flowering performance, glossy dark green foliage, and compact growth habit, 'Dearest' represents the perfect choice for gardeners seeking both extraordinary beauty and reliable garden performance.
Headlines
- Type: Floribunda bush rose
- Eventual Height: 60-90cm (typically 75cm)
- Eventual Spread: 60-80cm
- Flowering: June to September (continuous repeat flowering)
- Hardiness: Hardy in the UK down to temperatures of -20 to -15 degrees Celcius (RHS hardiness rating H6)
- Growth Habit: Vigorous, bushy, compact
- Colour: Salmon-pink to rosy salmon-pink
- Form: Large double blooms in abundant clusters
- Size: Medium to large flowers (camellia-shaped)
- Petals: Double form with substantial petal count
- Fragrance: Strong, spicy fragrance
Spectacular Flowers
The defining beauty of 'Dearest' lies in its exquisite salmon-pink blooms that create a warm and inviting garden display throughout the growing season. These magnificent flowers showcase rich rosy salmon-pink tones that are both distinctive and harmonious in garden settings, with blooms that are distinctively shaped like camellias for added elegance.
The large double flowers are borne in abundant clusters typical of the finest floribunda varieties, with each bloom displaying the perfect proportions and substance that have earned this variety its Gold Medal recognition. The salmon-pink colouration provides exceptional garden impact whilst maintaining the refined elegance that makes this variety a true garden classic.
Exquisite Fragrance
'Dearest' offers gardeners the exceptional pleasure of a strong, spicy fragrance that adds another dimension of charm to its already impressive garden presence. This rich, distinctive scent enhances the warm salmon-pink tones and makes it perfect for planting near seating areas, pathways, or windows where the fragrance can be fully appreciated and enjoyed.
Outstanding Garden Performance
This superb rose demonstrates exceptional garden performance through its vigorous, bushy growth habit and excellent disease resistance. The variety exhibits robust, healthy growth with glossy, dark green foliage that provides an attractive backdrop to the spectacular salmon-pink blooms and maintains excellent garden structure throughout the season.
'Dearest' boasts reliable garden performance with its compact, manageable size making it suitable for gardeners of all skill levels. The hardy constitution and excellent health ensure dependable results year after year, whilst the vigorous growth habit provides consistent flower production.
Continuous Flowering Performance
As a repeat-flowering floribunda, 'Dearest' delivers continuous blooms from June through to September, ensuring months of spectacular garden colour and fragrance. The variety produces abundant clusters of flowers throughout the growing season, with reliable repeat flowering that maintains consistent garden impact from late spring through to the first frosts.
This extended flowering performance means gardeners can enjoy the beautiful salmon-pink blooms and spicy fragrance for the maximum possible time, making it excellent value for garden space and providing reliable seasonal colour and scent.
Growing Requirements
- Position: Full sun for best flowering and fragrance development
- Soil: Moist but well-drained or free-draining soil - adaptable to various soil types
- Spacing: Allow adequate space for mature spread of 60-80cm
- Care: Regular feeding and watering during growing season
- Winter Care: Hardy variety requiring minimal winter protection
The variety thrives in full sun conditions and performs best in well-drained, fertile soil with regular feeding during the growing season. Regular spraying against disease is recommended to maintain optimal health and performance.
Garden Uses
'Dearest' offers exceptional versatility for various garden applications:
- Mixed Borders: Provides warm colour and reliable structure in perennial plantings
- Rose Gardens: Outstanding for rose collections requiring award-winning varieties
- Cut Flower Gardens: Exceptional for fragrant flower arrangements
- Container Gardens: Ideal for pots and containers due to compact size
- Hedging: Suitable for informal hedging applications
- Cottage Gardens: Perfect for informal settings with its warm, welcoming colour
- City Gardens: Excellent choice for urban conditions
- Gift Gardens: Perfect variety for planting as a meaningful gift
Award-Winning Excellence
'Dearest' has earned Gold Medal recognition from the Royal National Rose Society, confirming its exceptional combination of flower quality, fragrance, garden performance, and overall excellence. This prestigious award validates the variety's outstanding characteristics as judged by horticultural experts and ensures gardeners can plant with complete confidence.
The medal-winning status guarantees that this variety has been recognised for its superior qualities, reliable performance, and exceptional garden value by the most respected rose authorities.
Perfect for Cutting
The strong stems, long-lasting blooms, and exceptional fragrance make 'Dearest' outstanding for cut flower arrangements. The salmon-pink blooms create sophisticated arrangements that provide both beautiful colour and delightful spicy fragrance, perfect for indoor enjoyment and special occasions throughout the flowering season.
Companion Planting
The warm salmon-pink blooms work beautifully with complementary colours such as deep purples, blues, or silver foliage that create striking contrasts, whilst cream, white, or soft yellow companions enhance the warm tones. The glossy dark green foliage provides excellent structure and seasonal interest as a backdrop to other plants.
Care and Maintenance
'Dearest' benefits from regular care including annual feeding, adequate watering during dry periods, and regular deadheading to encourage continued flowering. Regular spraying against disease helps maintain the excellent health and performance that make this variety so reliable and rewarding to grow.
The compact, manageable size makes pruning and maintenance straightforward, whilst the vigorous growth habit ensures quick recovery and abundant new growth each season.
Why Choose 'Dearest'?
Rose 'Dearest' represents the perfect choice for gardeners seeking a Gold Medal winning rose that combines distinctive salmon-pink beauty with exceptional fragrance and reliable performance. Its award-winning credentials, strong spicy fragrance, abundant flowering, and compact growth habit make it both a stunning garden feature and practical growing choice.
Whether you're creating warm colour schemes in mixed borders, seeking fragrant roses for cutting gardens, wanting a variety suitable for containers, or looking for a meaningful gift plant, 'Dearest' delivers outstanding results. Its medal-winning performance, proven garden reliability, and exceptional fragrance make it an essential choice for gardeners who appreciate roses that combine horticultural excellence with practical growing advantages and distinctive beauty that brings both visual impact and delightful scent to the garden throughout the growing season.
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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