The RHS Hampton Court Flower Show Festival of Roses is a firm favourite with show-goers and is certainly always high on my list of priorities. The sumptuous smell when you enter the Rose Marquee is unequalled anywhere and the sight of all those wonderful blooms, brought to the peak of perfection for the show, is a rose lovers heaven.

One of the highlights of the Festival of Roses is the Rose of the Year award, which this year has been awarded to Mattocks Roses for their Joie de Vivre ‘Korfloci01’ -  a lightly fragranced, creamy pastel pink rose Floribunda. The rose has a compact habit and has demonstrated outstanding disease resistence.

During the show I was presented with Rosa County® of Staffordshire ‘Korsoalgu’ by a very nice group of people from the Staffordshire Society. Ideal for border or container planting, the rose flowers freely producing clusters of copper yellow flowers that fade to creamy yellow. Available from www.mattocks.co.uk

Peter Beales ‘Francis Copple’ (pictured above) is a modern shrub rose, with lovely semi-double coppery yellow, paling to a primrose yellow colour as the flower ages. It has large and glossy foilage and if late summer flowers are not removed the bush will produce a crop of oval-shaped orange hips.

Beales also premiere Togmeister at the show (picture left). Named for one of our best loved presenters, Sir Terry Wogan, Rosa Togmeister ‘Beahappy’ is a fragrant Floribunda, bright yellow, flowering continuously during the summer.

‘Team England’, introduced by Beales in association with the Royal Horticultural Society, has been chosen as a very special rose which was named to encourage the England Football Team to bloom in the World Cup. Despite Team Englands failure to flourish to the final stages, the rose will continue to flourish and root for England National football teams and other England teams for years to come. A healthy, upright shrub rose (which can be grown as a small climber if supported), it has deep red perfumed blooms with a mid green foilage. www.classicroses.co.uk

C & K Jones introduce ‘Alexander’s Issie’ (Dicland) named by fashion designer, the late Alexander McQueen (pictured left) in memory of his great friend and international style icon, Isabella Blow. The rose is said to reflect Isabella’s unique, colourful personality, with coral peach blloms born signly or in clusters, offset by dark green, semi-glossy foilage.  www.jonestherose.co.uk

Dame Judi Dench and Lady Wogan made guest appearances at the Rose Festival presentation.

The Best Exhibit in the Midsummer’s Rose Festival went to Peter Beales Roses (Gold) with Gold also being awarded to Fryers Nurseries and Mattocks Roses.

Picture Credits: Julian Desborough, LaunchPlusOne.Ltd.