Revisiting ‘Heritage’ David Austin Rose

In our former residence, our garden looked quite different than it does now as everything was squashed into containers on a postage-stamp sized patio. So, not a lot of room for roses although I did manage to grow a few including this David Austin beauty, ‘Heritage’. Blooming from spring until frost with shell pink flowers and the strongest, sweet-lemony fragrance this rose was a keeper except for one major pitfall: it’s susceptibility to blackspot. It didn’t survive the winter (should have prepared it better) and when we moved I focused instead on adding other David Austins and OGR’s to our new garden. However, last Saturday we found a nursery that carries a few Austin roses (this is a big deal, as for an Ag town there are surprisingly few cultivars to be found around here) and I ended up taking home another ‘Heritage’. The rest of the afternoon was spent photographing this rose from every angle–like it was a Victoria’s Secret model or something–and then I couldn’t help but snip some to bring indoors. In fact, as I type this, I can smell the sweet perfume of the bouquet sitting several feet away from me. ‘Heritage’ is so popular I’m probably not telling you something you don’t already know: her blossoms are incredibly fragrant and lovely, but they also shatter quickly so are not the best of the Austin roses to use as cut flowers. The foliage, I’ve found, is susceptible to black spot and the overall shape can get lanky and arching (sounds to me like a trait passed on by ‘Iceberg’). Still, this rose is utterly charming and one that David Austin himself once said was his favorite of the English Roses (source). We now have 17 or so different David Austin roses in our garden but I’d still like to add more; I find they’re quite addictive, don’t you?