Rosa Prins Alexander - Hybrid Tea Rose

Rosa Prins Alexander will delight lovers of romantic flowers. Throughout summer, it has double roses of a ravishing pearly white, enhanced with a yellow to salmon pink heart. They bloom in clusters and diffuse an intense and pleasant fragrance in the air. It is compact and its stems are only lightly thorny, adorned with beautiful shiny dark green, disease-resistant foliage. It can be planted as a specimen, in a flowerbed, in a small hedge, with a group of perennials, or even in a pot.

The Prins Alexander Rose is a creation by Belgian rose breeder Lens. This recent variety was named by Princess Léa after her late husband, Prince Alexandre, in September 2017 during the Festival of Plants in Celles, in Hainaut (in Wallonia).
As a major member of the Rosaceae family, the Rosa genus is rich in numerous botanical species as well as a multitude of horticultural hybrids, classified into major categories. Historically, Hybrid Teas are the result of cross-breeding between remontant hybrids (with double and recurrent flowers) and tea roses (or roses with a tea fragrance), obtained from 1833 onwards, with beautiful moderately double flowers but not very hardy. These were later abandoned in favour of tea hybrids, from which Prins Alexander descends.
This variety is particularly attractive due to its dense and compact habit, forming a bushy shrub 60 to 80 cm (24 to 32in) high and 40 to 50 cm (16 to 20in) wide. Its shiny dark green foliage is very attractive and remains beautiful throughout the season, as Prins Alexander is highly disease-resistant. Another significant advantage is that the stems are only very lightly thorny. The flowers have a diameter of 7 cm (3in) and appear from June until October, provided you deadhead regularly, and have an elegant, princely charm. The roses are double, with a moderately numerous petal count, and in the shape of a cup, the typical and nearly perfect form of tea hybrids. They are a sumptuous pearly white and the petals in the centre take on yellow or pinkish nuances, sometimes both at the same time, creating a salmon-pink heart that enhances the white outer edge. Not only beautiful, they also emit a powerful fragrance combining the scent of myrrh, an aromatic resin obtained from an oriental shrub, and ripe pear. The deciduous foliage falls in autumn, and the hardiness of this rose is estimated at -15°C (5°F), or even slightly lower.

Prins Alexander Hybrid Tea rose is undemanding and easy to grow. You can incorporate it into a low flowering hedge alongside other flowering shrubs, such as Philadelphus Little White Love, a dwarf Mock Orange with pure white, fragrant flowers. It would be a good idea to intersperse a non-fragrant plant to fully enjoy the respective fragrances of these two shrubs. Deutzia Yuki Cherry Blossom would perfectly fulfill this role, with its small size and pretty little pink flowers, or Weigela florida Naomi Campbell, with its purple-pink flowers and chocolate-colored foliage that allows you to create interesting contrasts. And, to vary the colours alongside these white or pink flowers, play the blue card with the Perovskia atriplicifolia Blue Steel, whose long summer flowering of lavender blue is accompanied by very "classy" grey-white foliage.