Paul Lédé climbing

Paul Lédé climbing, Low 1913

Monsieur Paul Lédé climbing

Climbing Paul Lédé

Climbing hybrid tea 

Way back in the early nineties I met Peter Beales at the rose festival at Hex Castle in Flanders. It was a time when every year famous rose connaisseurs and rose breeders came to give lectures and /or sell roses. During the nineties I met Roger Phillips, Peter Beales, David Austin Jr etc...

So I met Peter Beales at his rose stand and he was advising me which rose to buy. I said I wasn't into Hybrid Teas (yes there was a period I hated them but I didn't know there where so many good ones) but into old roses.

I said this one is exquisite pointing at a container rose behind him. That's Paul Lédé climbing, one of my all time favorites but too bad for you it's a climbing Hybrid tea. I remember I bought Yolande d'Aragon instead for in my parents garden.

Because I was reading David Austin's books I had developed this anti Hybrid Tea thinking. It was only much later I discovered that there were so many beautiful early Hybrid teas and the ones produced today are glorious.

But I always remembered that name: Paul Lédé climbing, the rose Peter Beales loved. Later, when internet was everywhere I soon discovered it was the climbing sport of a very early Hybrid Tea from Ducher: Monsieur Paul Lédé. But even then I wasn't ready to start buying Hybrid Teas. My love for the old roses and the DA's was still too strong. My love for the old roses stayed but my love for the Austin's diminished during the early 21th century. Good Hybrid Teas took their place.

It was at that time I bought climbing Paul Lédé for my mother's birthday. I planted it next to a little wooden pergola with a cast iron bench underneath. That spring the rose got beautiful long canes with typical big HT foliage. Early June the buds started to unroll and the most beautiful apricot/Beige /silky petals appeared. The blooms had this typical strong Tea fragrance. After three years the rose was three meters in Hight and I had wrapped it around the pergola. When it bloomed it was the most magnificent rose you had ever seen, a sight to behold. It bloomed in two flushes, June and August..

Today she's still going strong and survived three times - 20 degrees.

Yesterday I ordered Souvenir de la malmaison at Lens because I had two big pots left. The other rose I chose was Climbing Paul Lédé. I'm going to keep her in that big pot for three years with a trellis behind it. After that I can move her into the ground.

Paul Lédé reminds you of the most beautiful Teas and early Hybrid teas like Safrano and La France. From now on I'm using his other name: Monsieur Paul Lédé climbing cause he's definitely a beautiful Monsieur, an aristocrat