Rosa Mme Issac Pereire - Bourbon Rose

The 'Mme Isaac Pereire' old rose is essential in the garden of a lover of old roses. This impressive variety, capable of forming a large bush or even climbing to several metres, depending on the growing conditions, needs space to spread its branches adorned with lush foliage, and to display all the splendour of its large, extremely double flowers, of a bright red-pink carmine, forming a beautiful whirlwind from which emanates a powerful, heady and intoxicating fragrance. Very recurrent if the soil remains moist, it still retains all its interest in autumn.

Rosa 'Mme Isaac Pereire' is an old shrub variety, introduced in 1881 by Garçon, a breeder who disappeared without any successors. It comes from the 'Bourbon' rose, a hybrid of Rosa damascena var. semperflorens and Rosa chinensis 'Parson's Pink China' or 'Old Blush', discovered on the island of the same name, now called Réunion Island. Its other ancestor is called Rosa x odorata 'Ochroleuca', a very old Chinese garden rose. Of beautiful stature, it forms a bushy bush with a spacious habit without being stiff, which can reach well over 2.50m in height and 1.50m (4 ft 11in) in width. Its deciduous and abundant foliage is carried by flexible but sturdy stems. Its colour is rather light green, and it has a rather good resistance to diseases if it is not lacking in water or nutrients. It generally blooms in June, sometimes as early as May, abundantly, and then again in September-October, once it is well established in fertile soil. It produces large, very double roses, slightly inclined, in round cups, but well open, about 9cm (3.5in) wide, formed by very numerous petals. Those located at the edge of the corolla curl outwards, accentuating the bulbous shape of this rose. Their colour, intense and warm, blends fuchsia pink and red. The fragrance of its roses is powerful and warm, with hints of pepper.

The use of the 'Mme Isaac Pereire' rose is varied, from romantic bouquets, to landscaping hedges, training as a climber, to isolated specimens on a lawn. Its roses go well with white, blue, mauve or violet flowers, as well as the silvery foliage of Artemisias, Snow Pear (Pyrus nivalis) or Willow-leaf Pear (Pyrus salicifolia). It will also stand proud above a carpet of Stachys lanata, and watch the white foxgloves pass by. It will also thrive in a tall border, in the company of variegated dogwoods, serviceberries, snowball viburnums or iteas, which will highlight its flowering. It also deserves, for its wonderful fragrance, to be planted as close as possible to a heavily trafficked path or against a house wall, but not in a scorching position.