Belle de Jour Rose Bushes

Rosa Belle de Jour

Winner of the 2021 Rose of the Year award, Belle de Jour is a beauty indeed! The delicious double blooms, heady with the summery fragrance of vanilla and apricot, come thick and fast from June right through to October, in saturated tones of peach and lemon. As a repeat-flowering Floribunda, the buds are carried in generous upward-facing clusters. And she's a strong grower too, with glossy green foliage and impressive disease resistance.
You'll find many more floribunda roses.

Features

• Height: to 1.5m
• Spread: to 1m
• Colour: soft yellow with deep apricot buds
• Shape of flower: double
• Size of flower: medium
• Scent: strong and fruity
• Flowering: repeat through summer to first frosts
• Group: Floribunda rose
• Glossy foliage
• Rose of the Year 2021

Growing

Plant Belle de Jour in a sunny or very lightly shaded spot in good rich soil, and she'll do well. So that means digging in plenty of well-rotted manure when planting, mulching in spring with more compost, and ideally feeding with a specialist rose feed. In late winter or early spring, prune back to around 20-30cm from the ground.
In terms of planting companions, Belle de Jour's warm yellow and apricot tones work well with purples, so an underplanting of hardy geraniums such as Rozanne or Johnson's Blue will look fabulous. In the same vein, lavenders would look lovely surrounding a group of Belle de Jour. Or take the hot, sultry route by combining Belle with similar tones; try crocosmias such as rich red Lucifer or orange Emily McKenzie.

The lovely clusters of scented flowers are brilliant for snipping and bringing indoors, where they'll fill a room with their fruity fragrance.

How to plant Belle de Jour Roses

Choose a spot with as much light as possible. Dig a hole sufficiently deep to allow the rose to be planted with the graft union at soil level and with plenty of room for its roots which should be spread out. Improve the soil from the hole by removing roots, weeds, large stones and other rubbish and mixing in about 25% by volume of well-rotted compost or manure.

Position your rose so its roots are spread out, wet them and sprinkle them with Rootgrow mycorrhizal fungi. If planting pot grown roses gently loosen some roots out of the ball before planting.

Then backfill the hole with mixed soil and compost, firming it gently as you go. Keep the union at the level of the surrounding soil. Water in thoroughly.

Prune to 30cm from the ground in late winter. Mulch in spring with a generous layer of well-rotted compost or manure. Snip off clusters of spent blooms to promote flowering.

Did you know?

Belle de Jour was bred by French rose specialists Georges Delbard, and named after the classic 1967 Luis Buñuel movie starring Catherine Deneuve.

Belle de Jour is also the French common name for Daylilies (Hemerocallis).