The Painters Collection of Roses

“What I need most of all are flowers, always, always.”

Claude Monet, 1840-1926 Impressionist painter and life-long gardener

The Painters Collection of roses by Delbards France are sensational and catch your eye in the garden with their unique colouring and happy disposition. My garden will be complete this season with the entire range of the Painters Collection growing, so I look forward to the colours, bright features, and many new photographs to share.

The great Impressionist painters emerged in 1870s France and were known for rejecting the strict rules of fine art and looking at the world through their art in new ways. Instead of the tradition of realistic studio portraits, these painters used the fleeting nature of outdoor light in front of their subjects, bringing about more awareness of light and colour. 

The Impressionist painters Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Henri Matisse and Paul Cézanne used brushwork in quick, short dabs of pure colour to depict light and sun. These individual brush strokes blended to produce the desired colours when viewed from a distance. The French rose breeder Monsieur Henri Delbard used this same inspiration to create a new range of roses that appear as if an artist had brushed the petals and hand-painted them, blending them in swirls of different colours. He called the roses ‘The Painters Collection’.

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”
Claude Monet

The Painters Collection of Roses includes

Maurice Utrillo rose will grow to 120 cm and is a floribunda rose in light red and cream.

Claude Monet is a strikingly beautiful rose with swirls of amazing colours that will flower all season long It will grow to 130 cm tall and is a Hybrid Tea with gorgeous striped pink yellow red and orange blooms that are bright, clear and in a perfect shape. This is a ‘must-have rose’ that sings in the garden, blooms prolifically and is quite disease resistant and hardy.

The Claude Monet rose has a delightful painted appearance, and a soft fragrance and is a repeat bloomer. It is most definitely, one of my favourite roses. It was Bred by Jack Christensen in the USA in 1992 and introduced through Delbards as Claude Monet Rose.

Henri Matisse rose is a shorter rose only growing to 100 cm and is a Floribunda rose in magenta pink to red with white stripes complete with a subtle fragrance. Henri Matisse will be new this season in the garden.

Edgar Degas rose grows to 120 cm and is one of the softer-looking roses in the Painters Collection with unique blooms in amber yellow flecked with red and pink. No blooms are ever the same and this one is a prolific bloomer in a camellia-like shape that is hardy and seems to love our Australian climate.

Alfred Sisley rose is another attractive shorter rose growing to 80 cm. It has beautifully shaped blooms in orange streaked with yellow and red. It really stands out in the garden against the glossy foliage. Alfred Sisley rose has won two French rose awards, and has good disease resistance and repeat-flowering habit.

“The painter unfolds that which has not been seen.” 
Paul Cezanne

The Paul Cézanne rose grows to 100 cm and is a Hybrid Tea with a ruffled appearance in the blooms in a gorgeous unusual blend of yellows and peach to coral tones. Every day in the season, the new flowers are uniquely varied and open in spectacular bright colours and, at times, in a softer pastel palette. Complete with a fragrance of citrus and cinnamon, the Paul Cezanne rose is absolutely beautiful.

The Paul Cezanne rose has a soft charm with a gentle hand-painted look and features a crinkled-edged flower in dusty yellow, with splashes of pink and a touch of white and each bloom has its own unique pattern. Bred by Delbards in France in 1992.

Camille Pissarro rose grows to 120 cm and is a Floribunda in yellows and red, pink and white stripes. It is always pretty and eye-catching growing in the garden.

Grimaldi rose grows to 100 cm in salmon with white and softer shades of pink. This one is also new to the garden this year.

La Vien Rose is one of the best-performing roses in the garden. Said to grow to 90 cm, but mine is much taller than that and very prolific, this year blooming all through winter until pruning cut the last buds off. It’s a subtle rose with a unique charm. The petals are hand-painted in appearance in two shades of pink and white—a very romantic rose that never stops flowering.

Pink Intuition Rose grows to 150 cm tall and, although it doesn’t have much fragrance, is a vigorous stunning rose. Magenta pink on pink colouring and classic rose-shaped blooms in a Hybrid Tea rose. Pink Intuition will bloom for long periods on long stems, so perfect to pick for inside and has a long vase life. This one is a sport of Red Intuition discovered by Arnaud Delbard in France in 2003.

Red Intuition Rose grows to 150 cm and is an award-winning rose in two-toned red colouring in a classic Hybrid Tea bloom form. It has a vigorous growth habit, and like pink intuition long stems and long vase life.

“There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted ”

Henri Matisse

The 2022 year, I’ll be planting other stripped roses including Cabana bred by Dr Keith W. Zary in the US in 2000 and introduced in Australia by Treloar Roses in 2008 as ‘Cabana’. It is a beautiful striped rose that grows to 150 cm and is almost thornless, upright, and well-branched with dense leathery foliage. The blooms are white, with pink salmon and yellow stripes.

Harry Wheatcroft rose a sport of Piccadilly rose discovered by Harry Wheatcroft & Sons Ltd. in the United Kingdom, in 1972 and introduced to Australia in 1975 as ‘Harry Wheatcroft’. It is a Hybrid Tea with red and yellow stripes, glossy light green foliage, and mild fragrance and grows to 100cm.

Frida Kahlo rose pictured below is another unique striped rose that is extremely prolific, beautiful and hardy. The rose won a silver medal in 2020 and in my garden has not stopped flowering even now in mid-June. 

Guy Savoy Rose is named to honour the famous French Chef and is one of the best climbing roses, hardy, disease-resistant, strong and vigorous growing to 300 cm. Another exceptional Delbard rose since 2000 that is well suited to the hot dry climate of Australia. I’ve only had ours for a few months, planted in late summer and it has grown over 150 cm already and has not stopped flowering yet in mid-June. Absolutely gorgeous rose, happy, prolific and healthy. The colour is a blend of bright red with splashes of white and cerise.

P.S. I Love You is another Delbard French rose with beautiful bi-coloured flowers that are deep red, and pink. Introduced into Australia from Delbards by Wagners rose nursery in 2019. It is said to be very hardy, vigorous healthy and disease-resistant. It blooms in clusters of 6-10 flowers and is beautiful when grown in a group, en-masse. 120 cm

Candy Stripe rose grows to 120 cm and is a vigorous hybrid Tea rose with deep rose-pink buds boldly splashed with white stripes and is highly fragrant. It is a sport of  Pink Peace discovered by Edward McCummings in the United States, in 1962.
Oranges and Lemons will grow to 150 cm and is bright orange with yellow stripes
Scentimental is a bushy fragrant rose that will grow to 150 cm and is red with white swirls.

Tropical Sunset rose will grow to 160 cm and has large blooms in yellow, with orange to red stripes, and a lighter yellow underneath with a fruity, spicy fragrance.

Fourth Of July climbing rose has large ruffled blooms and will grow to 3-4m. It has semi-double blooms in red and white stripes and deep green foliage.

Abracadabra will grow to 120 cm and is a hardy disease-resistant shrub bred from a yellow rose called Frisco and a red called Black Beauty 99. It has blooms of deep crimson with swirling yellow stripes.

Its Magic is another striped rose growing to 100 cm with bright red and white stripes and a touch of yellow in the centre. It is a Floribunda and winner of many international rose awards.

Honorine de Brabant is a Bourbon rose that will grow to 180 cm and is a stunning rose with double blooms in light pink, splashed with crimson and purple. It is an old-fashioned rose and a sport of Commandant Beaurrepaire rose. It was discovered by  Rémi Tanne in France, in 1916. Unusually for an old-fashioned rose, it will repeat flower throughout the season and is robust, bushy growing to 185 cm as a shrub, climber or pillar rose.

Alfred Sisley Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Maurice Utrillo, and Paul Cezanne are the Delbard roses in the garden named after Impressionist painters. There are also other roses that look like impressionist-painted roses in this range such as La Vien Rose, Mitsouko, Guy Savoy, Grimaldi and Pink Intuition. The remaining roses in the Painters Collection are being planted in the next few weeks along with Cabana and Harry Wheatcroft. Tropical Sunset is already here happily growing amongst the other roses.

The complete Painters Collection of roses and other striped roses are available from Wagner’s Rose Nursery South Australia

All content Di Baker 2019 reposted June 2022.

Images Di Baker unless cited from Wikimedia.org