'Chandos Beauty' Hybrid Tea Roses

Rosa Chandos Beauty

Chandos Beauty is one of the most popular roses in the UK today, and is a go-to variety for summer wedding decorations. It's an enduring classic with sublime colouring. The buds are a porcelain pink-white, opening from late spring into huge double flowers, about 12cm across, with the most delicate warm apricot blush at the centre, fading to almost white on the outer petals. There are plenty more hybrid tea roses to take a look at here.

As it's a repeat flowering rose, the blooms will keep on coming summer and well into autumn, especially if you keep on top of the deadheading. The perfume is warm, fruity and intoxicatingly sweet.

She's a bush, or hybrid tea rose, growing to around 1.2m tall: strong, robust and with excellent disease resistance. She well deserves her RHS Award of Garden Merit, the UK Rose Growers Gold Standard, and a 2007 Fragrance Prize.

Nurturing your romance

Like all roses, Chandos Beauty likes plenty of nutrients, so dig in some bonemeal, compost or well-rotted manure before planting. A rose fertiliser, such as Toprose, is good during the growing season. She's not too fussy about light levels, and will grow happily in south, east or west-facing positions, as long as she's not shaded by taller plants.

Plant in flowerbeds, borders, or knit several plants together to create an informal wildlife-friendly hedge. In fact, a hedge is a great idea, as then you'll have plenty of flower stems to cut and bring indoors. Chandos makes an excellent cut flower, and will scent a whole room with one vase.

As planting companions for Chandos Beauty, we recommend the romantic cottage garden route. Think frothy, lime green Alchemilla mollis, hardy geraniums in pastel shades, delphiniums in blues and pinks, spikes of deep blue Salvia nemorosa, Cosmos, and so on.
Lavender will look wonderful beside it, and create a fabulous border with the most intense perfume.

Like all hybrid teas, it is best pruned in early March. Remove the three Ds: dead, diseased and damaged wood to the base, then prune to an open goblet shape about 4-6 buds from the base of the shrub.

At a glance

• Height: to 1.2m
• Spread: to 90cm
• Colour: pale pink with hints of amber and cream
• Shape of flower: cup shaped
• Size of flower: large
• Scent: highly scented, fruity and sweet
• Flowering: June-October
• Group: bush, Hybrid Tea
• RHS Award of Garden Merit
• Rose Growers Gold Standard
• 2007 Fragrance Prize from the Glasgow International Rose Trials

If it's good enough for Mary Berry...

Bred by Harkness Roses, this is Mary Berry's favourite rose. In honour of that fact, a descendent of Chandos was named Mary Berry, and introduced at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2016.

How to plant Chandos Beauty 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 in late spring/early winter and feed twice ideally, first in spring then later in summer.