Rosa Ketchup & Mustard

The Ketchup & Mustard ® Rose Bush is a modern hybrid with some of the most contrasting bicoloured flowers you can admire: its typical turbinate roses of the tea hybrid variety proudly display intensely red petals that reveal a mustard yellow reverse. They bloom in clusters on a vigorous and healthy bush, and their colour, which remains harmonious despite its intensity, is perfectly highlighted by a glossy dark green foliage. This perpetual rose brings colour to flowerbeds and its roses last a long time in a vase.

'Ketchup & Mustard' (Wekzazette) is a large-flowered bush rose obtained in 2011 in the USA by Christian Bédard. It is a bushy and upright shrub that reaches 90cm (35in) to 1m (3ft) in height and 60cm (24in) in width at maturity, with rapid growth. It produces strong, somewhat rigid, thorny branches that bear beautiful copper-red young shoots. They unfold into very elegant, sturdy foliage that turns glossy dark green. It is not very susceptible to diseases. Throughout the summer, if care is taken to remove faded flowers, the plant continuously produces large, perfectly shaped, turbinate flowers measuring 8cm (3in) in diameter, composed of 17 to 20 petals. They are solitary or grouped in small bouquets and carried at the end of long shoots from the current year or emerging from 2-year-old stems. The flowering is devoid of fragrance. The deciduous foliage falls in autumn and reappears in spring.

This Ketchup & Mustard rose, with its striking colour, is ideal as a solitary plant in a well-kept small garden. It is also perfect for use in large monochrome borders, as its highly contrasting colour is quite difficult to match. For example, it can be associated with white Panicled Phlox, red Penstemon, daisies, chocolate cosmos, as well as the dark foliage of certain Physocarpus ('Burgundy Candy'), or the feathery foliage of bronze fennel. Its cut flowers, with good longevity, are naturally perfect for bouquets.