Turner's Crimson Rambler

Chapter 1 (extract 2) of "Roses for English Gardens" (1902), by Jekyll and Mawley, in which Miss Jekyll analyses the aesthetics of Turner's Crimson Rambler, a multiflora rose.

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So it has come about that one after another, more and more garden Roses have come into use and have come into being. One of the first of the outsiders to be adopted as a garden Rose was the Himalayan R. Brunoni or moschata with its rambling habit, its pale bluish leaves, and its clusters of milkwhite bloom. Then we took up the type Rosa multiflora or polyantha, with its vigorous growth and its multitudes of Bramble-like sweet-scented flowers. Then Turner's Crimson Rambler, a plant of Japanese origin, closely related to R. multiflora, took the garden world by storm, for its easy cultivation, great speed of growth, and its masses of showy crimson bloom. Those of us whose eyes are trained to niceties of colour-discrimination wish that the tint of this fine flower had been just a shade different. Brilliant it undoubtedly is, and its noonday brightness gives pleasure to a great number of people; but if it had had just a little less of that rank quality that it possesses slightly in excess, it would have been a still more precious thing in our gardens. The time to see it in perfection is when the sun is nearing the horizon, and when the yellow light, neutralising the purplish taint, gives the flowers of the Rambler just the quality that they unfortunately lack ; then and then only they show the glorious red that the critical colour-eye demands, while at the same time their brilliancy is intensified.

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LIST: R. Brunoni—type, single, milk-white, in clusters.

Double var.

R. multiflora, syn. polyantha — single, white, in large clusters.

Double

Large flowered, single

Hybrids —

Crimson Rambler; crimson [see also next post].

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See also:

New Roses of the late Victorian era

Multiflora roses

Dwarf polyantha roses (Pompom roses)

The wichuriana roses (Rosa wichuriana hybrids)

The rugosa roses (Rosa rugosa)

Some new tea roses and species roses for gardens

Sweet Briars (Rosa rubiginosa) and the Penzance hybrids