''Rosa'' 'Wife of Bath' (aka AUSbath), is a pink shrub rose

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...

developed by

David C.H. Austin David Charles Henshaw Austin (16 February 1926 at Albrighton – 18 December 2018 in the same village) was a British rose breeder and writer who lived in Shropshire, England. His emphasis was on breeding roses with the character and fragra ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1969. It was one of his early cultivars and is named after a

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

from

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...

's ''

The Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''Masterpiece, ...

''. 'Rosarium Glücksburg' is a

rose garden A rose garden or rosarium is a garden or park, often open to the public, used to present and grow various types of garden roses, and sometimes rose species. Most often it is a section of a larger garden. Designs vary tremendously and roses m ...

in the park of

Schloss Glücksburg ''Schloss'' (; pl. ''Schlösser''), formerly written ''Schloß'', is the German term for a building similar to a château, palace, or manor house. Related terms appear in several Germanic languages. In the Scandinavian languages, the cogna ...

Glücksburg Glücksburg (; da, Lyksborg) is a small town northeast of Flensburg in the district Schleswig-Flensburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany and is the northernmost town in Germany. It is situated on the south side of the Flensborg Fjord, an inlet ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

History

David Austin roses

David C. H. Austin (1926 – 2018) was an award-winning rose breeder, nursery owner and writer from

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

. He began breeding roses in the 1950s with the goal of creating new shrub rose varieties that would possess the best qualities of old-fashioned roses while incorporating the long flowering characteristics of

hybrid tea rose Hybrid tea is an informal horticultural classification for a group of garden roses. The first hybrid tea roses were created in France in the mid-1800s, by cross-breeding the large, floriferous Hybrid Perpetuals with the tall, elegant Tea roses. T ...

s and floribundas. His first commercially successful rose cultivar was 'Constance Spry', which he introduced in 1961. He created a new, informal class of roses in the 1960s, which he named "English Roses". Austin's roses are generally known today as "David Austin Roses". Austin attained international commercial success with his new rose varieties. Some of his most popular roses include 'Wife of Bath' (1969), 'Canterbury' (1969), and 'Abraham Darby' (1985)

'Wife of Bath'

'Wife of Bath' and 'Canterbury', the second cultivar Austin named in honour of the English author Geoffrey Chaucer in 1969, were the first repeat flowering varieties in his English Rose Collection. The rose cultivar was created from

Joseph Pernet-Ducher Joseph Pernet-Ducher (1859–1928) was a French rose breeder who is recognized for his work in the development of the modern Hybrid tea rose. Pernet and his father, Jean Pernet, worked together in the 1880s to develop the first yellow remontant ...

's pink hybrid tea 'Madame Caroline Testout' (introduced in 1890) and a cross between the floribunda 'Ma Perkins' (Boerner, 1952) and Austin's first English rose 'Constance Spry' (introduced in 1961). David Austin used the cultivar in the development of several new English roses, including 'Gertrude Jekyll' (1986), 'Pretty Jessica' (1983) and 'Scepter'd Isle' (1989).

Description

'Wife of Bath' has old-fashioned medium-sized flowers with an average diameter of , and up to 55 petals. They develop from red round buds, and have a strong, sweet fragrance of myrrh. The slightly cupped bloom form is double to very full with many small, informally arranged petals in the middle of the flower. The center is deep pink, and contrasts with the paler reverse and the outer petals, that fade to very pale pink. They grow in clusters of 3–9, and appear continuously from early June throughout the summer. The robust shrub grows densely and remains rather small, reaching only about 80 to 120 centimeters (2.5 to 4 ft) height at a width of 60 to 90 centimeters (2 to 3 ft).The arching shoots bear small, matte, medium green leaves. 'Wife of Bath' is disease resistant and winter hardy down to −23 °C (

USDA zone A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a certain average annual minimum temperature, a factor relevant to the survival of many plants. In some systems other statistics are included in the calculations. The original and most wide ...

6 and warmer), and half shade tolerant. The variety is grown on its own roots and can be planted solitary, in groups, or as hedges, but is also suitable as container plant and as cut flower. Due to its size and floriferousness, the cultivar is well suited for small gardens.

References

{{Rose, state=collapsed

Wife of Bath "The Wife of Bath's Tale" ( enm, The Tale of the Wyf of Bathe) is among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbury Tales, Canterbury Tales''. It provides insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and was probably of inte ...

The Canterbury Tales