Rosa 'St.Swithun' - 11 June 2024

Scent in my life has been important ever since I was a little boy. I have written about it a few times.

Today as I went around my garden I noticed that the English Rose, Rosa ‘St.Swithun’ was in bloom. My only excuse to snip 3 blooms and scan them was to write a blog about their scent.

It is interesting that there are good smells and bad smells but scents have to be always pleasant. In Spanish we have olor for smell but aroma for scent.

St. Swithun has for me the intense and refreshing scent that the English call myrrh. When David Austin introduced his first English Rose, Rosa ‘Constance Spry’ in 1961 the rose had an intense smell only had in what was called the Rosa ‘Yorkshire Splendens’ which is a very old rose with that unique scent. Austin had crossed Rosa ‘Belle Isis with Rosa ‘Dainty Maid’. It was the former that had that myrrh scent.

Rosa 'Constance Spry' & a happy man

Immediately the rose world was in two camps. There those who loved the scent and those that simply cannot bear it. Luckily my Rosemary noticed the smell in a garden sale at VanDusen. She told me, “Alex I saw a rose today and want to go back to buy it.” It was St.Swithun.We have had that rose (and that specimen) since.

Some people say myrrh is much like licorice. I don’t exactly care much for licorice. I sense beside liquorice, some pepper and a similarity with the most supreme scent (my opinion) in botany which is that of the Southern Magnolia or Magnolia grandiflora.

Some years ago I was in Memphis working with an art director for a book. On a Sunday he insisted on taking me to church. On the way I spotted a grandiflora. I asked him to stop. I got out and smelled one of the blooms. I then told him, “I have been to church. You go. I will stay here.”

And so today Tuesday, 11 June I went to church. I am a happy man.