David Austin English Rose 'Christopher Marlowe'

Beautiful fancy looking flower beginning as a deep bright candy color bud and suddenly pop open into this neatly arranged petal flat shap...Read Moree, very unusual for a modern rose. Scent is light, very healthy leaves and easy to work with. Hard to describe the color maybe a rosy carmine lighten up to a more pastel salmon pink with some light yellow toward the center. The reverse underside of the petal is pale yellow or bright beige makes a very high contrast to the surface color. Its always changing color depending on the time of the yr and temp. It really bloom in the winter of SF, CA but the color is entirely different then when in the summer. Still very lovely in more pale shade of pink. Well behave in my yard. One of the most charming rose from DA.

Foliage is so glossy, it shines in the sunlight! Beautiful, very disease resistant; low incidence of aphids, and Japanese beetles leave ...Read Moreit alone completely (however, there are other "sweeter" roses nearby, so...).

Mine is about 3' x 3', 2 years after planting, which is larger that it's stated mature size. Flowers like crazy. My only caveat would be that of my Austin roses, it's flowers are not super remarkable in shape, nor fragrance, and it's signature characteristic - changing color from salmon-red-to-pink is not as neat as I expected, for as the buds are the dark, beautiful color, they change to pink once open so fast that if you blink, you'll miss the transition. I had hoped the "medium" salmon-color would stick around longer.

All that said, though, one of my favorites - completely trouble free, and free flowering all summer and into the fall.

I have two of these and I love them. They generally stay compact -- I only get the occasional long cane. They take a short break from b...Read Morelooming in January and never lose all their leaves (I strip what I can but some of those suckers just hang on). Otherwise, they're literally covered with blooms all year. Real standouts. The blooms are borne in clusters, fairly large, cup-shaped, and shaded with raspberry pink, peach, and yellow.

According to David Austin's 2009 Handbook of Roses, they named this rose was named for the well known playright who was a contemporary o...Read Moref William Shakespeare.