Oh Sir Clough

I grow quite a few roses, I think all of them purchased from David Austin who is my all time favourite rose grower.  Partially I think because he clearly shares the love of Portmeirion as I do.  I already own his Rosa Portmeirion and Rosa Susan Williams Ellis; both magnificent roses.  However when I saw the rose named Sir Clough well I knew I had to buy one to complete the trinity.

So here it is, the beautiful, the wonderful, Sir Clough.

It is quite a dark neon pink and has this amazing yellow aura at the base of the petals.  It is the only what I would call traditional rose that I own, by which I mean when I was a child growing up in the 1970s I can only remember seeing tea roses, this particular shape and very little scent usually.  This is not a criticism, it just was the fashion of the time.  I have a large collection of roses but they are the old-fashioned cabbage type mainly and overwhelmingly bought for their scent.  I am quite strict in that if a rose has no scent it has no place in my garden (unless it sneaks in under another criteria).  Sir Clough does have a good scent though so it passes all criteria; its beautiful, great colour, wonderful scent and shape plus a good personal rationale for including it.  Every box is ticked.

It also occurred to me whilst looking at the rose buds what a perfect button-hole rose it is, I am toying with having rose button-holes for work, it would be a nice affectation.

So, he meets the most important criteria: he is beautiful, he has some scent and whilst he may not be named after Sir Clough Williams Ellis, I think that highly unlikely and in my head he is anyway so he completes my Portmeirion trio.