Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad'

'A Shropshire Lad' is a medium tall, upright shrub rose, 4 to 6 ft (1.2–1.8 m) in height, with a 3 to 5 ft (0.91–1.52 m) spread.^[1] Large flowers open up to a lightly cupped peach rosette with many quilled petals. The flowers can vary from peach to peach-pink in colour and are paler at the edges. The backs of the petals are dark rose in color. The rose has a strong, fruity scent.^[2] 'A Shropshire Lad' is almost without thorns and has large, dark green glossy foliage. It blooms in flushes throughout the season.^[3][1]

David C. H. Austin (1926 – 2018) was an award-winning rose breeder, nursery owner and writer from Shropshire, England. He began breeding roses in the 1950s with the goal of creating new shrub rose varieties that would possess the best qualities of old-fashioned roses while incorporating the long flowering characteristics of hybrid tea roses and floribundas. His first commercially successful rose cultivar was 'Constance Spry', which he introduced in 1961. He created a new, informal class of roses in the 1960s, which he named "English Roses".^[4] Austin's roses are generally known today as "David Austin Roses". Austin attained international commercial success with his new rose varieties. Some of his most popular roses include 'Wife of Bath' (1969), 'Graham Thomas' (1983), and 'Abraham Darby' (1985)^[5][6]

'A Shropshire Lad' was bred by Austin in 1996. The cultivar was developed from a cross between shrub rose, 'Heritage' and an 'Unnamed' seedling'. The rose was named after the collection of poems, 'A Shropshire Lad' by A.E. Housman on the 100th anniversary of its publication.^[2][3]