{"id":3801,"date":"2022-10-03T04:35:44","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T12:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=3801"},"modified":"2022-10-03T04:35:44","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T12:35:44","slug":"golden-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/golden-celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Golden<\/a>I have a passion for just about all roses, and right now, as they put on their brave last act, I feel especially tender towards them.\u00a0 The changes in light\u2014intensity and duration\u2014have affected their colors.\u00a0 The petals of my red and white-striped \u2018Scentimental\u2019 are now more red than white.\u00a0 Back in May the color ratio was just about even.\u00a0 The lovely silvery-pink \u2018Gruss an Aachen\u2019 is now quite silvery, its peachy overtones disappearing along with the daylight hours.<\/p>\n

But one my best roses has resisted the temptation to change colors.\u00a0 \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019, a large Austin English rose is sporting the same golden yellow blooms that it has produced in profusion all season.\u00a0 Though the flower production has started to drop off, the flowers that remain are like bits of light in the garden.\u00a0 Every one lives up to the name.<\/p>\n

I planted \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019 about ten years ago.\u00a0 It did not receive the most auspicious location in the garden.\u00a0 Other roses, planted earlier, had that advantage.\u00a0 It lives on the south end of the front garden, close, but not too close, to the large quince bush.\u00a0 The location is sunny, but the ground is a little lower than that occupied by most of the other roses.\u00a0 It does have the advantage of a sunny locale and wind protection from the privet hedge behind it.<\/p>\n

Despite that small amount of disadvantage, \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019 sank its roots and flourished.\u00a0 It has achieved its maximum height and spread\u2014about five feet tall and four feet wide, and I let it stay that way, only pruning out weak or dead wood.\u00a0 Gardeners without as much room could keep the shrub pruned to a smaller size by cutting the canes back by one third after each flush of bloom.<\/p>\n

The blooms are big, fat golden cups filled with multiple petals, generally borne singly, but in profusion.\u00a0 When the light is just right, the inner petals glow with golden-orange overtones.\u00a0 Rated by the Austin people as among the best roses for fragrance, the scent is described as, \u201ca strong Tea fragrance, developing wonderfully combined notes of Sauternes wine and strawberry.\u201d\u00a0 I haven\u2019t had any Sauternes in quite awhile, and I have to admit that my nose is just not that sensitive, so the wine and fruit references don\u2019t resonate with me.\u00a0 The \u201cstrong tea fragrance\u201d is there in all its glory, and a couple of \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019 blooms can scent an entire bouquet.\u00a0 As my rose-loving father would say, \u201cIt smells the way a rose should smell.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the late David H.C. Austin set about breeding his ground-breaking \u201cEnglish\u201d roses, he aimed for an old-fashioned look and scent coupled with modern disease resistance and a repeat-blooming trait.\u00a0 \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019 was the result of a cross between two older Austin varieties, \u2018Charles Austin\u2019, an \u201capricot blend\u201d rose; and \u2018Abraham Darby\u2019, a pinkish-apricot bloomer.\u00a0 I already have \u2018Abraham Darby\u2019 in the garden, so in essence I have a perpetual parent\/child reunion taking place in my front garden.\u00a0 True to Austin\u2019s claims, one of \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019s grand or great-grandparents was an old French rose, \u2018Duchess de Montebello\u2019, an intensely fragrant, pink hybrid Gallica rose introduced by breeder Jean Laffay in 1824.<\/p>\n

How did all of those pinkish-apricot roses produce a golden yellow offspring?\u00a0 The answer lies in the genetic soup.\u00a0 Roses with a bit of peach coloring often have a yellow parent or ancestor, and \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019 does as well.\u00a0 \u2018Yellow Cushion\u2019, a sunny-colored floribunda rose, was a parent of \u2018Abraham Darby\u2019, contributing the yellow-flowering gene.<\/p>\n

No matter how the rose came about, it is a beauty.\u00a0 In my garden it has not suffered from black spot, a fungal disease that also lurks in the genetic soup of yellow roses.\u00a0 I try to keep the shrub pruned so that the canes have lots of air circulation, but that does not always work with other yellow varieties.\u00a0 I would like to think that my good garden habits have prevented black spot, but it is much more likely that \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019 is an exceptionally disease-resistant yellow rose.<\/p>\n

The Austin people write, \u201c\u2026it is the perfect rose for commemorating Golden Weddings, 50th Anniversaries or any other celebration or important event.\u201d\u00a0 I think that you don\u2019t have to have a celebration or important event to include a \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019 in your garden.\u00a0 It creates its own party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a passion for just about all roses, and right now, as they put on their brave last act, I feel especially tender towards them.\u00a0 The changes in light\u2014intensity and duration\u2014have affected their colors.\u00a0 The petals of my red and white-striped \u2018Scentimental\u2019 are now more red than white.\u00a0 Back in May the color ratio … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[2773,2775,922,731,2774,2772,1577,521,729],"class_list":["post-3801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-austin-roses","tag-disease-resistant-roses","tag-english-roses","tag-fragrant-roses","tag-landscape-shrubs","tag-rosa-golden-celebration","tag-rose-breeding","tag-shrub-roses","tag-yellow-roses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3803,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3801\/revisions\/3803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}