00:00Lady Emma Hamilton is one of the most distinctive and fragrant English roses bred by David Austin
00:08in 2005. The rose stands out with its dramatic color, rich perfume and compact upright growth,
00:16often staying around a meter times a meter. The buds begin as deep orange with hints of red,
00:24gradually opening into a bold tangerine and apricot. These vibrant flowers are beautifully
00:33offset by the dark, branch-tinted foliage, creating a striking contrast rarely seen in most modern roses.
00:41Fragrance is a highlight on Lady Emma Hamilton. You get this very tea scent on the front end,
00:49a little bit of tobacco, just like something like Golden Celebration, but what's kind of special is
00:56you get fruity tones at the back end of the green tea and the tobacco scent. So you have the
01:02typical
01:02tea hybrid with a bit of fruit. The variety is naturally compact, as I said before growing only
01:09to a meter in height and width, and it suits most small gardens and is also beautiful in pots,
01:15like a harried hair. Lady Emma Hamilton is in general very healthy. She does suffer a little bit from
01:22black spot and she's very immune to rust. It often tends to bloom in two to three flushes and then
01:33it
01:33kind of goes to sleep. It is named after the famous 18th century muse of Admiral Lord Nelson.
01:42She was also his mistress and sadly after Nelson died at Trafalgar, she went into poverty and she died
01:53quite poor. But she was known for her beauty and as I said before, she was an artist, an actor
02:01and...
02:04So why would you want to grow Lady Emma Hamilton over something like Lady of Shallot, which was the modern
02:12variety Austin bred after to take the spot for Lady Emma Hamilton? The answer is obvious. Lady of Shallot
02:23she has nearly no fragrance. She is a 4 out of 10. Very slight fragrance. And she is also much
02:31more tall than
02:34Lady Emma Hamilton and much more a huge bush. While Lady Emma Hamilton is much more this small bush.
02:44So, and you can also look at the depth of color. Like the depth of color in Lady Emma Hamilton
02:53is so much deeper.
02:55There are so many more color tones in her flowers than there are in Lady of Shallot. So in my
03:03opinion,
03:04Lady Emma Hamilton is nearly a better Lady of Shallot in every way.
03:11More fragrance, better form, more color depth. A more beautiful transition from the opening.
03:19Only advantage I will say for Lady of Shallot is she tends to bloom a little bit more and you
03:26can grow her
03:27also as a climber. And you can also use her more as a large bush where Lady of Hamilton is
03:36more tidy and neat.
03:37But really, in my opinion, most people should really try to get
03:45Lady of Hamilton and focus much more on that rose than something like
03:50Munstered Wood. Because unlike Munstered Wood, Lady of Hamilton is
03:57actually healthy. It is a healthy rose. And it will do really well for you.
04:04I think Munstered Wood is much less healthy in my opinion. So what I get it is the
04:13attractive crimson flowers that really get people. And I was no different when I started out. And
04:21I remember those days too. I impressed one back then. But that was just to explain the difference between the
04:34two.
04:35I'm not sure. As normal, we're ranking on five categories. Health, fragrance, form, flower and storytelling.
04:42You can read under each what they're about. And each category can give a max of 10 points.
04:48And 50 is exceptional and below 10 is very bad. I rank Lady Emma Hamilton 8 on health.
04:58Subtracting a few points for the black spot I can sometimes get.
05:03And I rank it 8 on fragrance. And fragrance was actually a hard thing to decide because
05:10I rank Golden Celebration 6. And I rank Gertrude Jekyll 8.5. And Golden Celebration is a very close
05:18tea fragrance to Lady Emma Hamilton. It's just not as powerful. And then you have Gertrude Jekyll,
05:25which is 8.5. And it is much more powerful than Lady Emma Hamilton. So Lady Emma Hamilton has to
05:36be
05:37somewhere in between those two. And it is either a 7.5 or an 8. Because
05:45the power of the fragrance is probably closer to 7.5. But the complexity of it, I would say,
05:52warns an 8. Because it has both the fruit tones and some of the tea tones. So I've gone with
05:58an 8.
05:59You can argue for and against a point. But that is what I went with this time.
06:08The form, I would say, is an 8 also. Because you have a beautiful, well-shaped bush you can use
06:14in
06:15pots and really anywhere in the garden you like. It's a very well-behaved bush.
06:21On the flower, I'm also giving it an 8. It is a very beautiful flower, in my opinion.
06:27And on storytelling, it is a clear 9 for me. You have the story with
06:36Nilsson's wife. You have the beautiful color change that's not just about the flower in itself,
06:42but also when it's budding and how the buds are colored. And it just has one of the most beautiful,
06:50deep color changes I've seen. And that is really what I would say you should pick it for. Not
06:57the fragrance per se. The fragrance is good. But what really makes this special, in my opinion,
07:06is the unique color, the unique color change, the well-behaved growth habit. Honestly, it's just
07:14very good on many fronts. And that's why it's become a collector item. And I can really see why.
07:21It's such a special rose. It really is. It lands us at 41 points in total. It is an excellent
07:30rose,
07:31due to being good in many areas. And although I would say this rose is a must-have on fragrance,
07:39if you like the tea fragrance. It is not the main reason I recommend most people to grow it.
07:44It is simply because the color is very unique, the color change is very unique, and the look of it
07:51is very unique. I have 400 roses in my garden, and nothing reaches the same color as Lady Emma Hamilton.
08:00And even though it's hard to get now, and a collector's item, I would really recommend people
08:05keeping an eye out for it, because it is unique. And because of that uniqueness, I'm giving it a gold
08:13medal. I would recommend everyone to try and get this rose, and see if you can find it. It is
08:20definitely
08:20worth growing for the unique color alone, and how the buds unfold. It's a beautiful rose, to be honest,
08:30and if you like the tea fragrance with a bit of fruit at the back end, then it's just even
08:36greater.
08:37That's it for today, guys. Subscribe if you haven't already, and thanks for listening to me rambling about roses.
08:45I'll see you in the next one.
08:45I'll see you in the next one.
08:46I'll see you in the next one.
Comments