'Awakening', a sport of New Dawn. Blatna Nurseries, Czechoslovakia, 1935

Awakening is a beautiful "new" member of the R. wichurana climbers group. Although it is a triploid, it will occasionally set seed, as does its parent. It seems that some time in the early 1930's a fully double sport of New Dawn appeared in Czechoslovakia, and was introduced into commerce by Blatna Nurseries in 1935. For some reason, this rose never made it into greater circulation, and certainly didn't seem to have made it to North American gardens. However, in 1990, Peter Beales of England obtained stock of it from Czechoslovakia and reintroduced it into commerce. How grateful we should be to Mr. Beales for making this rare beauty available once again to the world. It would have been a great shame if Awakening should have fallen permanently into obscurity, as this is a beautiful rose that should be grown more often.

Awakening shares all the same attributes as it's "parent", New Dawn. It is quite disease resistant, reblooms well, and is the same soft shade of pink that is so easy on the eyes. The apple-scented blooms are fully double with about twice the number of petals as its parent, and sometimes it will appear in quartered form as you see it do here. It will form a medium sized climbing shrub just the same in stature as New Dawn......about 12' tall at maturity.