FRYER’S Roses is to launch two new roses at this year’s RHS Tatton Park Flower Show – the ‘20th Anniversary’ and ‘Elizabeth Ashbrook’.

To commemorate and celebrate the show’s 20th anniversary Fryer’s is launching the ‘20th Anniversary’ rose; a new and exclusive rose to Fryer’s, part of the Blue Diamond Group of garden centres.

This hybrid tea rose has petals that are rosette-shaped and which open to a cool violet with a warm copper-coloured centre.

The ‘Elizabeth Ashbrook’ rose is in memory of the late Elizabeth, Viscountess Ashbrook of Arley Hall, and the mother of the present Viscount Ashbrook.

Elizabeth, Viscountess Ashbrook, was born in 1911 and died in 2002 aged 91. She was originally Elizabeth Egerton-Warburton.

She married Desmond Flower in 1934, but in 1936 he inherited from his father the title Viscount Ashbrook, so Elizabeth, for the rest of her life, was known as The Viscountess (or Lady) Ashbrook.

Lady Ashbrook lived at Arley Hall for the whole of her life. Her greatest interest was gardening, and she did a huge amount during her life to improve the garden at Arley.

The garden was first opened to public visitors in the early 1960s.

One of the major new features created by Lady Ashbrook in the garden was a collection of Shrub roses. She made this on the site of a previous formal area where there were Hybrid Tea roses.

Lady Ashbrook did not particularly like Hybrid Teas in a garden, though she appreciated their value as cut flowers, but she became very fond of old-fashioned and newer varieties of Shrub roses, both species and hybrids.

The collection she made has been added to and enhanced over the years and remains an important feature. Lady Ashbrook became an expert on Shrub roses and their cultivation.

The current Lord Ashbrook said- “It seems to us highly appropriate that there should be a new rose called ‘Elizabeth Ashbrook’ after my mother, who did so much to enhance the Arley Garden and started the shrub rose collection which remains one of our key features.”

The ‘Elizabeth Ashbrook’ Rose is a Floribunda rose, and so produces an abundance of beautiful pale pink blooms in huge trusses and with a light fragrance.

£1 from each rose sold through Blue Diamond and Fryer's Roses online will be donated, at the request of the current Lord and Lady Ashbrook, to the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB).

Elizabeth, Lady Ashbrook, experienced almost total loss of sight in the last 10 years of her life and benefited greatly from the RNIB Talking Book scheme.

The new roses will be available to buy from Stand FM 33 in the Floral Marquee at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show, online by visiting fryersroses.co.uk or by calling Fryer’s Roses on 01565 755455, while stocks last.

Photographs provided courtesy of Arley Hall Estate.