Mme Caroline Testout climbing

Mme Caroline Testout climbing, Chauvry 1901

Climbing Hybrid Tea

This climbing sport of the once incredibly popular early Hybrid tea is in fact superior to its parent. It's still a very popular climbing rose and with good reason. She can adorn the façade of an old cottage or house with her silvery pink giant blooms and yes she reblooms.

The ant of my father lived next to us when I grew up. She had this tiny old cottage with a lovely cottage garden filled with peonies, foxgloves, lilax, Lavender and roses. But one thing stood out and that was the climbing rose against her backdoor facade. The rose stood next to her backdoor with five thick canes going up vertically. At three meters it went horizontally covering the whole facade from left to right. It was a giant T shape. In June this T Was covered in silvery pink blooms as thick as grapefruits. It was a sight to behold. Later in the summer they kept coming but not so abundantly as in June. My father had asked her which rose it was and she couldn't remember it 100%. Caroline or something she mumbled. That was in the eighties. Not much later she died and a young couple bought the house:The very handsome mechanic Benny and his wife Odette. Fortunately they kept the rose and in the meantime my passion for roses had started. They asked me how to prune her and I learned them it needed only light pruning. Shorten the lateral canes on those horizontal main stems and that's it! Of course I now knew it wasn't Caroline but Mme Caroline Testout climbing. Till this day she still blooms at the cottage and she survived the big freeze of 1996 when it was - 22 Celsius in December.

Climbing Hybrid Teas are made for this kind of façade wall climbing. Their thick upright canes can me trained horizontally quickly and once you have your canes set up in place you only have to prune the lateral canes back a bit each March or a bit sooner in warmer climates. This way she will always bloom beautifully. Look at her as if she's an apple or pear espalier, they are in fact cousins so you prune them the same way. All Climbing Hybrid Teas can be used this way. Also incredibly beautiful are La France climbing, Lady Waterlow climbing, Compassion, Étoile de Hollande climbing, Crimson glory climbing, Odette Joyeux, Peace climbing etc...

Mme Caroline Testout has very famous parents : Mme de Tartas X Lady Fitzwilliam. The very big silvery pink flowers have a round shape. Unfortunately she has only mild to moderate fragrance but don't let that stop you from buying her.

Caroline Testout was a Couturier from Lyon and for the opening of her new store in London she asked French breeder Pernet Ducher to create a rose for that occasion. The rose became immensely popular, especially in America and millions were sold. Later a climbing sport was discovered, the one we are talking about here. Superior to her mother the climbing version is still widely available. But also good nurseries still sell the bush form of Mme Caroline Testout.

Again this is rose royalty 👑 and if you love nostalgic gardens, Mme Caroline Testout climbing is your rose