Griffith Buck rose "Simon Estes"

[tsubasahome]

Griffith Buck rose "Simon Estes", a photo by tsubasa_ozora.rm on Flickr.

This rose really deserves to be more widely grown. We have it planted in a very sunny location, so it's hard to photograph, but the flowers are pretty spectacular. The plant itself is short but not due to the plant suffering dieback--it actually lost very little over the winter. It's just a compact plant. The flowers are a full 4 inches across, and look almost like a semi-double peony. It shares some genes with Distant Drums but the flowers are bigger and have more petals. Not plain at all!