Some rose judging at the Rochford's International Rose Trials

June and July seem to be quite dominated by roses for me at the moment.  In my garden they are flowering well and I was recently given the opportunity to visit Rochfords International Rose Trials in Hertfordshire.

The visit was organised by the Garden Media Guild, of which I am a proud member.  Its not too long a drive from where I live so I set off happily to arrive on time.  Rochford's is a trade only nursery and the International Rose Trials are an important string to their bow.  The nursery is a family business, now with the fifth generation in charge.  

The rose trials are free for anyone to enter: professional or amateur, from the UK or overseas.  You have to enter a minimum of five bareroot young plants that are planted in November/December and grown on from there.  They are not sprayed with anything, they are pruned, mulched and given a slow release fertiliser when planted.  They try to replicate how a home gardener might look after them.  

This year they have around 98 varieties on trial from 26 breeders.  It is a garden-worthy trial, not a scientific trial and they work with the RHS so that the winners of these trials can automatically be awarded Award of Garden Merit (AGM) status rather than having to be trialled again.

After having an introduction to how the trials worked we were then briefed on how to take part in the judging.  We were let loose with a clipboard and pencil: told what to look for: then sent out into the warm sunny field to get judging.

We had two rows of roses to judge, so firstly I walked up and down looking at all the roses in turn and getting a general feel for what we were doing.  Then it was time to go nose first and start judging.  We were judging on health, flower, overall effect and scent.  Scent was not the highest score as whilst I do love a rose with scent even I do not think it is the be-all and end-all.  Some roses don't have scent and we have to respect that.

As it is a trial not all the roses were perfect by any measure.

and this is where overall effect really came into play.  As it might be a pretty flower, it might have good scent, but actually the flowers don't die well and some showed signs of disease.  

Did I have a favourite: no I had several.  I also cannot tell you any names of the roses I saw as they are all numbered: there was no way for me to know which breeder they came from or what their name might be.

This one I liked a lot.  I think I liked it despite thinking I wouldn't usually like this colour-way.  But there is something very joyous about this rose.

I really liked this rose a lot.  It was so pretty.  I would find space for this one in my garden any day of the week.

But I think this one was the one I kept going back to, even when looking through my photos of the day this one kept drawing me back.  It is so pretty, so romantic.  It would make a great rose to be a cut flower or in a bouquet.  I can't remember if it had scent or not but if it goes on sale I would buy it.

We had a fabulous day: I have to thank the team at Rochford's for looking after us so well and the Garden Media Guild for arranging the visit.

Take care and be kind.

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