Last year was my first year with Munstead Wood. The blooms held a long time on the plant and went from violet red to deep purple as it aged. Love that rose!

Munstead Wood Bud
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Munstead Wood Bloom
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Aging Bloom
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Thanks for the reply. Does the bloom ever look dark colour/ black or is it more purple? I would love to have a dark coloured rose in my garden to give it a haunting touch to it.

In my alkaline soil, many roses have a lighter color than those I've seen in more acid soil, so it may be possible Munstead Wood would be a much deeper purple for you. Charles Darwin, for example, is yellow in many gardens but almost an ivory in my garden. Even though my Munstead Wood was only a year old last year when I took the pictures, it was holding its blooms up nicely, not drooping. Very disease resistant for me. And in had fairly good rebloom also. I loved the color changes as it aged.

Lovely photos, karenforroses! That looks like a rose to try. My list just got a little longer.

I put two of the Munstead Woods out last year. One went in the ground; the other went in a pot, at least to start with. Both did well enough for a first year plant. Both repeated well and fairly close together time-wise. The flowers had good color, fairly close to the above posted pictures and similar to the pictures in the David Austin catalog. First year flower size was on the small side, but it is better, not surprisingly, in cooler conditions. Its fragrance helps make up for some size shortcomings. However, the blooms were rather short-lived when it got hot. I think that the variety is basically a good one. I hope that it will improve with age. One standout difference I see between Munstead Wood and its color rival, The Prince, is that The Prince's flowers will burn in our summer heat. Munstead Wood's flowers did not burn, but they didn't last too long either.

Tradescant has dark red blooms that don't burn.

I just found a past thread written by andreageorgia.

This is what she wrote about Munstead Wood:

'[Munstead Wood] crank out a bunch of huge, and I mean huge (15+cm) many-petalled flowers of the blackest velvety red (looking much much more impressive than on the DA website). They are of absolutely stunning color and substance. Just touching a single petal is a delight - thick, veined, of a black red on the outside turning to crimson and cerise pink toward the middle, it looks like it came from an artist's canvas. I've never seen such a dark red in a rose, not even in a hybrid tea. At their first opening, there wasn't much scent, but then it developed into a very deep classic damask, wow. The blooms last a week or so. However, it's still not a tall plant, 2-3 ft perhaps, and the canes are weighed down when the big flowers open fully.'

Wow!!! I hope this description is accurate. 'Black red' blooms...'huge 15cm blooms'...damask fragrance. Definitely going to give this rose a try.

Any thanks everyone for your input. Much appreciated.

Sounds like I need one more irresistible rose!

Karen, thanks for posting the beautiful pictures and giving your input on Munstead Wood. Very interesting observation that your alkaline soil makes the color of the blooms of MW a lighter one. I have very alkaline soil and water and I noticed to my surprise that the first bloom that William Shakespeare 2000 has opened is much lighter than the flower is came with from Chamblee's. I like the darker bloom much better and maybe I will put some soil sulfur anorund the rose and see what happens. On the other hand I am growing 'The Prince' and this rose has the darkest velvety flowers of all the roses in my yard. Who knows maybe only some rose varieties are sensitive to alkaline soil/water in terms of changes in their flower color depending on their breeding lineage.

JumboJimmy, in my garden Heritage shatters very quickly, it is almost annoying, but William Shakespeare 2000 seems to hold it blooms much longer.

the bustopher, you are right, 'The Prince' burns in the heat very easily in my garden, too. It would be such an improvement if Munstead Wood wouldn't do that! Thanks for sharing this important observation!

Christina

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Garden Dreams