Fortune’s Double Yellow (OGR)

Wang-jang-ve, or “yellow rose”, was the Chinese name for this lovely climber when Robert fortune collected it in a garden in Ningpo. It can’t take cold weather at all, so only gardeners in zone 8 and below get to appreciate the flush of sweet-scented spring flowers. These flowers are large, loosely double cups of warm yellow flushed with rose and edged with crimson. They’re carried individually on long prickly stems and make remarkably good cut flowers for indoor displays. The whole plant is fiercely prickly which makes it painful to fuss with in the garden. It can be left alone to mound up into a wildlife-protecting tangle of draping canes covered with pale green foliage, or, if you have the fortitude, (and the gloves) to undertake the training, ‘Fortune’s Double Yellow’makes a spectacular climber. The delicate beauty of the flowers is traffic-stopping when spread out to the full length of the 12 to 15 foot canes. Extremely tolerant of any growing conditions as long as heat is included, this rose has naturalized in California, where it collected several pseudonyms over the years, including “San Raphael Rose.”