Claire Austin

My mother's day roses are finally growing and blooming, and wow are they gorgeous. They're even worth the colossal headache we went through to get them.

Let's just say that David Austin Roses doesn't have the best customer service in the world. Three of the roses ended up dying; I guess they didn't like sitting in the 90+ degree weather for several extra days because when the company finally shipped them (after numerous phone calls), they shipped them right before Memorial Day weekend so the boxes sat in the heat for the whole long weekend. Argh.

On top of that, I ended up with three tree roses. The husband had originally ordered three tree roses in a deep burgundy color to go with the 8 light pink shrub roses, but I was worried about the tree roses surviving a Colorado winter. So I asked the husband to call the company, and if the roses hadn't shipped yet (ha), to ask if we could swap the three tree roses out for another kind of rose. I looked through their print and online catalog and found the Claire Austin roses.



I love, love, love white roses, and these looked beautiful. They were listed only as shrub and climbing roses. I looked at the selection of tree roses and didn't see the Claire Austin rose. So I asked for three Claire Austin roses instead of the three tree roses. And what did I get? Three Claire Austin TREE roses! What?! Argh!



It took them awhile to grow and start blooming, but now they appear to be rather prolific bloomers. The flowers are incredibly beautiful, and the fragrance--described as "based on myrrh with dashes of meadowsweet, vanilla, and heliotrope"--is absolutely amazing.





I'm not quite sure what to do to ensure that they survive our winter; the blooming portion of the rose is about 3 feet off the ground, so it's not easy to just mound mulch over it. Do any of you have experience with winterizing tree roses? I'd love to hear your advice and suggestions! I will be so, so sad if these don't survive our winter!