Rosa Fragrant Old Purple 'Ausport'

The Fragrant Old Purple rose is a creation by David Austin rarely offered despite the extraordinary fragrance and rich colour of its large velvety roses. They emit an exquisite fruity fragrance, combining notes of plum, blueberry, and blackberry. Their intense and voluptuous colour matches their fragrance, in shades of carmine red, purple, and violet with mauve undertones. This vigorous, deciduous, bushy rose with perpetual flowering is stunning in romantic flowerbeds and in bouquets, in the purest style of English roses.

The Fragrant Old Purple rose is part of a group of hybrids that carry the genes of ancient roses. Its habit is bushy, well-branched, rather upright but natural, with rapid and regular growth. At maturity, it will reach between 1.10 m (4ft) and 1.50 m (5ft) in height with a spread of 80 cm (32in) to 1 m (3ft). The flowering repeats from June to October in successive waves, if the soil does not dry out too much in summer. At the end of the young branches, solitary flowers with double petals, measuring 8-9 cm (3-4in) wide, appear. They are composed of numerous slightly crumpled petals. Their color evolves from carmine red to purple pink, plum, and violet over time. These flowers emit a fragrance of old roses that varies in intensity depending on the time of day and ambient temperature. The foliage is composed of 5 to 7 dentate leaflets, of a fairly dark green with a slight shine. This rose is a deciduous, spiny shrub that loses its leaves in late autumn.

Plant the Fragrant Old Purple rose in groups of 3 plants: that's how it will be most beautiful. Plant some clumps of blue, pink, white, or purple salvias, Nepetas, campanulas, or perennial geraniums Rozanne in front of this flowerbed to create a romantic English garden! It can be paired, like other English roses, with a flowerbed of flowering shrubs, perennials, or light-flowering annuals. Its romantic roses will naturally be sublime in a vase.

Bred by David Austin in 1982.