Rosa 'Zepherine Drouhin' -  3 May 2026

My Rosemary taught me early on in our gardening to be BC or botanically correct. The rose I scanned today is called Rosa ‘Zepherine Drouhin’. In proper botanical nomenclature the species name is capitalized and italicized. The cultivar name is placed between single quotes.

Those who do not know would say that this rose is probably the last one in the catalogues as the name begins with a z. They may add that it is one of the few roses that does not have thorns. Unfortunately that person would be wrong in the second opinion as roses have prickles and not thorns.

In Spanish a thorn is an espina but in proper Spanish botanical nomenclature Zepherine Drouhin has aguijones.

It could be that my Kitsilano deck is warmer than in other parts of the city as I have many roses in bloom right now when they usually bloom in June.

I used to have a lovely Hosta 'Zounds' which was the last in all hosta catalogues. Here with Rebecca in our old Kerrisdale garden on the right is Zounds. Somehow when we moved to Kitsilano it disappeared.