|
|
Rose mutabalis
Being mutable is the ability to change and this is how this rose got its name. The flowers continuously change colour. Terracotta coloured buds open to single copper yellow and soon turn pink before maturing to an almost crimson. The result is all colours on the bush at the same time as this rose is an ever blooming variety. The flowers are single and dance like butterflies in clusters on thin stems.
I consider rose Mutabilis to be a shrub and treat it accordingly. It only gets a prune from me when it has become too large and threatens to topple onto the path below. By this stage it is well over two metres tall. Then I sacrifice the flowers and prune it almost to the ground where it will soon send up strong new shoots to rejuvenate itself.
Rose mutabilis is a very bushy grower and tends to be evergreen or semi evergreen in our temperate climate. It reveals in the heat and tolerates exposed dry conditions, though not salt gales. It is very amenable to clipping and training and I have seen it successfully used as a colourful hedge. Being a tall grower it can also be trained as a low growing bushy climber and excellent as a pillar specimen. In the border rose Mutabilis looks good with everything and particulary stunning with blue flowers and grey foliage. Its own small leaves have a bluish grey cast to them.
There is no need to spray this rose unless you find aphids a problem. Disease is not an issue. As the flowers are single rain doesn’t seem to worry them. In heavy rain the petals may fall off but new buds are waiting to open the next day. This rose sets very few seeds and these occur from late summer so these is no need to dead head. Rose Mutabilis will just keep on flowering.
This is one of the original species roses from China. It is easily propagated from semi hardwood cuttings taken in late summer. Within a year from cutting size you will have a nice sizable shrub to plant out. This is one rose you can depend upon to flower on a certain date because the only time it is not flowering is when you have pruned it back.
|
|
|
|