Rosa Sally Holmes

The 'Sally Holmes' Rose is truly different. It is a modern bush rose, highly recurrent, which possesses the charm and simple flowers of botanical roses. Vigorous, with an upright habit and beautiful bright green foliage, ample and shiny, it offers almost continuously generous bouquets of large single flowers like wild roses, of a delicate pale pink colour becoming white when fully open. Original and graceful, it allows, for example, for the formation of a subtly scented rose hedge late in the season.

Rosa 'Sally Holmes', awarded by the RHS in England, is part of the varieties developed by the English rosarian, Holmes, famous for his few but top-notch creations, as with Fairy Snow or 'Fred Loads'. It was introduced to the horticultural market in 1976, the year of the drought that left its mark. Is it a coincidence that it is well adapted to hot climates? It is the result of the marriage between the roses 'Ivory Fashion' and 'Ballerina'. Depending on the pruning it receives in spring, it forms a large bush of 1.8 to 2 m (5 ft 11 in to 6 ft 7 in) in height and 1 m (3 ft 4 in) in width, which can be left free or trained as a small climber. Very branched, vigorous but flexible, it is very thornless and covered with healthy, ample, slightly shiny bright green foliage. It proves to be highly resistant to rose diseases. Its flowering is remarkably long, lasting almost 5 to 6 months. This shrub renews its 8 cm (3.1 in) diameter corollas, composed of 5 to 8 petals, in successive waves from summer until late autumn, forming large terminal bouquets. The well-tightened buds, of a very soft pink colour, open into simple cups barely tinged with pink. They quickly turn ivory-white, all these pastel shades mingling in its bouquets. Their pleasant fragrance is rather light, with musky notes.

'Sally Holmes' dresses a garden in a unique way, to the point that it seems to have always been there. Truly charming and generous, it forms by itself a shrub that is both simple and highly ornamental at the back of a flower bed. It is easy to train on a pole, a small arbour, a slightly shaded wall or a column. In a country hedge, it gets along well with 'Clair matin' and 'Mozart', which have the same temperament. Like other large roses, it is incomparable for giving a little touch of abandonment when planted above overly strict flower beds. It is an ideal companion for an old fruit tree, a small pillar, and cabins to which it gives a crazy charm. Trained on an arch, it will constitute an interesting structural element in an "English-style" garden. As it is easy to maintain a bushy habit, it can also be planted in a mixed hedge, in the company of abelias, Mexican orange trees, spindle trees, or, for example, botanical roses (R.complicata, R. Hansa, R. moyesii).