Regular GardenDrum reader Phileppa Doyle (Goulburn, NSW) has sent this photo of her beautiful rose, the enigmatically-named ‘Heidelberg Phoenix’. Phileppa writes:
A friend took these photos of the rambling rose on my veranda. A local rose judge named it ‘Heidelberg Phoenix’, created in Kordes, Germany in 1954; it is highly perfumed. A neighbour (who once lived in this house) remembers it as having been here since the 1960s.
I remove the hips after the first bloom and leave them in the garden as compost. Last summer I found a rose seedling in the front garden, potted it up and this season it has had 3 blooms; it is, undoubtedly, ‘Heidelberg Phoenix’! How excellent is that!
[Editor: I would add that Phileppa is obviously quite expert in pruning and training to get this fabulous effect! And some research indicates that Heidelberg Phoenix may have been named to celebrate how the city of Heidelberg ”rose from the ashes’ like a phoenix after WWII]