Rosa x persica 'Pastel Babylon Eyes' - Miniature Rose

The 'Pastel Babylon Eyes' Rose Bush seduces with its semi-double, bi-coloured flowers, a very pale orange-yellow, enhanced with a bright red heart, the margin and reverse of the petals turning pink when ripe. It blooms from late spring to the end of summer in successive waves, as light and colourful as a flight of butterflies. Belonging to a new line of hybrids of the Persian rose, Babylon Eyes roses have a compact habit that allows them to be grown in large pots to bring a touch of exoticism to the terrace or balcony. They will enliven the beds of hardy perennials and shrubs in dry soil late in the season.

The Rosa (x) persica Pastel Babylon Eyes 'Intereybabsap', distinguished at the Salon du Végétal with an Innovert d'Or, descends from a wild rose discovered in 1784 by the botanist André Michaux in the Zagros Mountains, between Iran and Iraq. The particularity of its bi-coloured flowers with a highly contrasting heart has since prompted rose breeders to attempt hybridization with other cosmopolitan species and varieties. After years of research and selection, interesting new cultivars have emerged throughout Europe.

'Pastel Babylon Eyes', born in the 2010s, is one of these varieties with exotic charm, as beautiful as hibiscus, still little known here. It is a shrub or bush with an upright and bushy habit, rarely exceeding 1m (3ft) in height and 75 cm (30in) in width. Its branches are moderately thorny and adorned with small, shiny, and healthy foliage. The flowering occurs early, in May-June, and regularly renews until September-October. The semi-double flowers with 8 petals in flat cups measure 5 to 8 cm (2 to 3in) in diameter. The changing colours of the flowers make this wonderful bush a multicoloured bouquet where purple-hearted flowers, very soft cream-yellow to orange, and flowers tinged with pink on the edges coexist.

Gently multicoloured and changing, 'Pastel Babylon Eyes' is an almost "indestructible" rose bush that will seduce gardeners without gardens or those who struggle with poor soil, dry in summer and frozen in winter. It will be adopted more than any other in a Mediterranean garden, in sandy, rocky soil, or on a slope, in a large rock garden, wherever other 'classic' roses would sulk. It is also hardy enough to withstand our normal winters, which allows it to be adopted almost everywhere. Babylon Eyes roses can be mixed with each other and with many other plants, such as garden irises, lavender, rockroses, rosemary, and escallonias in dry soil. It can be paired with pink or white foxgloves, catmints, or pretty grasses like Muhlenbergia capillaris or Stipa capillata in cooler soil. It can be surrounded on the terrace or balcony, for example, with silver cineraria, alstroemerias, agapanthus, or sweet William.