How To Grow Hybrid Tea Roses: Anne Swithinbank’s top tips

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Tiptoe through the tulips

YEARS ago, I remember seeing loads of tulips, but now they don’t seem quite so abundant in gardens. Here I am, aged two, admiring the rows of different-coloured blooms, which lined our garden from top to bottom. Linda Kettle, Portsmouth, Hampshire

Wendy says: Calling all readers! Please tell us about your early memories in the garden and share photos if available.

Reader’s Quick Tip

IF one of you hyacinth bulb is developing more slowly than another in the same bowl indoors, then invert a small class tumbler over it. This will so speed up the growth and thereby it will help to create a more uniformed display. L. Evans, Denbighshire

Guess this plant!

Cracking nut

I HAVE been watching two trees planted earby, because I couldn’t make out what they were. I noticed strange apsules appearing, and as they got igger they got even more weird and ooked like large edible chestnut ruits. When they dropped, the spiky capsules contained Turkish hazel uts. Well done o Crewe Council or introducing such a novelty. I’ve saved some nuts to grow on. John Proctor, Crewe, Cheshire Turkish hazel nuts and fringed husks of Corylus colurna AGM

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Decades ago, every garden had a Rosa ‘Peace’ –and the Hybrid Tea Rose is now fi nding favour once more Unless the weather is very cold, now’s a good time for you to prune, feed and mulch your roses to ensure a good show this summer.

Hybrid Tea Rose ‘Blessings’, which produces a profusion of salmon-pink blooms continuously, is ideal for borders and small spaces From autumn to spring, when soils are not frozen or waterlogged, is a good time to plant roses from pots or bare-rooted. This potted Hybrid Tea ‘Royal William’ is a tall grower, bearing shapely red blooms with a sweet fragrance

How to grow... Hybrid Tea Roses

With their exquisite, pointed buds and large, often scented petals, these short upright plants are ideal for rose beds, formal gardens and narrow borders, as Anne explains

THERE was a time when every garden boasted a Rosa ‘Peace’ or ‘Alec’s Red’, but in recent decades the good old Hybrid Tea Rose has taken a back seat. Heads have been turned by a renewed interest in romantic, old-fashioned varieties and the many excellent English Shrub roses bred by David Austin. It’s time to take a fresh look at Hybrid Teas, and renew our enjoyment of their generous nature, fabulous colours and long stems of shapely blooms. Their story begins with cultivated roses from China reaching European shores in the early 1800s. Blooms were not as striking as existing rose varieties, but were produced repeatedly throughout summer. Breeding work created groups including the Portlands, Bourbons such as ‘Madame Isaac Péreire’ and Tea Roses, so-called because their fragrance was likened to the aroma of China tea. For exhibition purposes, the shapely cut buds and blooms of Hybrid Perpetuals gained popularity, and by the second half of the 1800s these were being crossed with Tea Roses to create Hybrid Teas. With their strong, upright bushy forms, shapely buds and repeat flowering, these have remained popular for the last 160 years. Hybrid Teas were the number one choice for old-fashioned rose beds, but are also ideal for difficult narrow borders in smaller gardens, mixed borders, and for cutting. We include them in our kitchen garden because the petals are edible, and we use them in herbal teas and crystallised for cake decoration.

Pots of potential Roses bought in pots can theoretically be planted at any time, though they will need a lot of watering in summer. If you are not sure which variety you want, then being able to see and smell them in bloom is a big advantage. The downside is that inevitably their roots will have begun to take the shape of a pot and should be teased out at planting. Bare-root roses delivered from November to March have been lifted from the nursery field, and are ready to grow down into the soil.

How to plant bare-root Hybrid Tea Roses

Plants arriving by mail or

are best planted immediatel

If not, pot them up or heel

them in by laying plants

so that their roots sit in a

trench and are covered

by soil as protection from

drying out and frost. Always plant roses in

good, well-cultivated soil

and in an open position, where they will not be trou by nearby trees, shrubs or hedges.

Prune in spring so stems are 4-6in above ground

Dig a generous hole, place the rose in and make

sure the roots fit properly with no bending or folding.

If necessary, prune over-long or damaged roots.

A bulge low down on the main stem marks where the

variety was budded onto a rootstock and should sit at soil

level. Scatter a product containing mycorrhizal fungi on

the roots and fill in around them with soil, treading firmly.

In February or March, prune the stems so that they are 4-6in (10-15cm) above the ground. Alamy Classicroses.co.uk / Kordes Heavenly Hybrid Teas

‘Flaming Star’ Perfect flowers for a vibrant, colourful border. A succession of large flamecoloured blooms of gold and cherry emit a mild fruity scent. A healthy rose.

Harkness

‘Thinking of You’ Throughout summer, neat bushes will produce elegant buds unfurling to moderately fragrant, deep crimson blooms, held on long, sturdy stems.

Alamy