This climbing tea rose, in deep primrose colours flushed with coppery pink, produces an abundance of large, loose, double flowers on a vigorous bush at this time of year.
One of the first roses to flower in spring, this climbing tea also produces blooms sporadically through the summer.
Madame Leonie Viennot was the wife of a rose breeder, and the rose variety was released in 1898, reputedly from a cross with Gloire de Dijon and an unknown seedling.
A keen member of the Heritage Rose Society, and the driving force behind the heritage roses planted around Arrowtown, Mrs Britton recommended plenty of water, mulch and manure to make roses grow well in the Wakatipu.
Mrs Britton prefers to use shredded donkey manure, rather than horse manure, which contains too many seeds, to feed her roses in spring and said mulching was essential to help the roses through the hot, dry summer season.
And instead of spraying for aphids and bugs, she prefers to leave them for the birds.
While the popular English (such as the David Austin) roses may seem appealing, with their repeat flowering and big blooms, Mrs Britton says they do not cope well with the dryness of the Wakatipu summers.
Instead, she recommended other old varieties, such as the perfumed noisette rose Madame Alfred Carrier and the prolific cherry-red single rambler, Nancy Hayward.
