Rosa ‘Wild Edric’

This beautiful English shrub rose is a fabulous addition to a mixed border. It produces large deep pink-mauve blooms in clusters through summer into autumn. Each pointed bud develops quickly into a semi-double flower which lasts a week, and as it matures the golden stamens are revealed, becoming available to pollinators. The profusion of roses on the 2m high bush with the healthy green foliage is a striking sight. The sweet  fragrance is of old roses. Being a rugosa rose, R. ‘Wild Edric’ can be used for hedging; its incredibly prickly stems would deter even squirrels.

David Austin bred this plant from English Rose pollen and rugosa seed. He introduced it at the 2005 Chelsea Flower Show. It won first prize for best landscape variety at the French National Horticulture Society in 2012, holds the Award of Garden Merit and got the RJ Frizell award for the most fragrant rose in Belfast, 2008. Austin named the rose after a Saxon Lord in Shropshire.

It grows in the Gardens on the Mixed Border near the Chusan Palm