If you are a Downton Abbey fan you will instantly know who Lady Edith is. This hit British TV show has won an enormous fan-base here in America, and of course fans will know that ‘Edith’s Darling’ is of course her daughter Marigold. Just as dear to your heart will be the rose that bears her name – fan or not – and everyone is head-over-heels in love with this gorgeous rose. We asked our growers to create a tree-rose for us from it and the result – Edith’s Darling™ Miniature Rose Tree – is even more beautiful than we imagined. The rose may be small, but it is their very smallness that gives them such enormous impact. The beautiful apricot-gold coloring, darker in the center, paler in the outer petals, is just the start. Packed with between 50 and 65 petals and deliciously fragrant, they are carried all over the bush for month after month. This is a wonderful tree that is perfect in your garden and just as perfect in a planter. Even if you have no garden it will grow spectacularly on a balcony or terrace, so this is a rose for everyone.

Growing Edith’s Darling™ Miniature Rose Tree

Size and Appearance

Edith’s Darling™ Miniature Rose Tree is a bushy rose on a sturdy stem, with a trunk that holds up a rounded ball of branches. This trunk brings the plant up close, so you can admire its beauty without needing to bend down, and makes it possible to grow other plants beneath it and add another dimension to your beds without needing more space – perfect for a small garden. The glossy dark green leaves have 5 to 7 leaflets in them, each one between 1½ and 2 inches long – perfectly in scale with the flowers, and a perfect backdrop to the profuse and continuous blooming of this bush.

Blooms are produced more or less continuously, from early summer all the way into fall, sometimes as a single bloom on a stem, but usually in clusters of up to six roses, covering the bush in their abundance. Each bloom is almost 3 inches in diameter and has the exact full form of the best antique and heirloom roses. Packed with up to 65 petals, the pointed buds open over several days, starting with tightly packed petals and ending as a full bloom, with an abundance of swirling petals. The color is wonderful shades of apricot and gold, with the darkest and richest tones in the heart of the bloom, with softer tones developing as your eye moves out to the edges. To top it off, these blooms release a delicious rose fragrance, both sweet and musky, like a true rose should smell.

Using the Edith’s Darling™ Miniature Rose Tree in Your Garden

A rose of this beauty deserves a prominent place in your garden, so place it as a specimen in a shrub bed. Plant it beside a path, framing a door or beside a gate. Plant a row along a walkway, or at the corners of a patio. It is ideal for planters and tubs, giving height, and beneath it can be other small shrubs or flowering plants. These pots look fabulous on a patio, a terrace, a sunny part of your porch, or on a balcony.

Hardiness

This rose tree is hardy from zone 6 to zone 9. In planters it is hardy in zones 7, 8 and 9.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Full sun is needed for an abundance of flowering and continuous blooming, so choose a spot that is in the sun all day. An hour or two of shade per day is tolerable, but shaded bushes will only flower sparsely. The ideal soil is rich, well-drained, moist and heavy, more towards a clay than sand. Roses are very tolerant of clay soils if they are not wet and flooded, and they thrive on them, where other plants often fail. Add plenty of rich composts or rotted manure when planting. For pots, make sure they have drainage holes and use a soil blended for outdoor plants, with 25% garden soil added to it.

Maintenance and Pruning

Provide a strong, permanent stake for your bush, driven well into the ground and tied at two places along the trunk and one up inside the leafy crown. Edith’s Darling rose tree has good resistance to the major rose diseases of black spot and powdery mildew, so forget all that nasty spraying. For minor pests like greenflies we recommend Neem Oil Spray or natural soap sprays – harmless and effective. Once the petals fall, trim back flowers to the first full-sized leaf on the stem – new shoots and new roses will rapidly develop. Should any shoots grow from the trunk of your tree, remove them immediately, flush with the stem. These are not Edith’s Darling rose, but stems of the rose that makes the trunk and roots of your tree. In spring, just as new growth is visible, remove any weak or damaged stems and trim back the remaining branches by one-half, cutting back to just above an outward-facing bud.

History and Origin of Edith’s Darling™ Miniature Rose Tree

This beautiful rose variety was created by the French-Canadian expert Christian Bédard. He joined Weeks Wholesale Rose Grower, Inc. in Pomona, California, in 2000 and worked with their skilled long-time breeder Tom Carruth. When Tom retired in 2012 Christian took over as the head breeder of the company. To create the variety officially called ‘WEKaltjuchi’, he crossed together a yellow rose called Julia Child™ (‘WEKvossutono’) developed by Tom Carruth, with one of his own roses, All a Twitter, (‘Wekcofbunk’), which is orange. Among the seedlings was one that stood out, and became Edith’s Darling™. An application for a patent has been made and should be granted soon.

Buying Edith’s Darling™ Miniature Rose Tree at the Tree Center

This wonderful rose tree will liven your garden with its unique apricot-gold coloring, and you are going to love the continuous blooming, with an abundance of roses all season. There will be plenty to cut for a vase, as well as to decorate your garden. But there won’t be plenty of bushes in our stock for long, because great roses like this fly off the farm – order now or be disappointed.