A cherished variety in Florida gardens, ‘Sombreuil’ produces flowers that are breathtakingly beautiful.   The blooms open from creamy white buds, to full, very double flowers with literally hundreds of petals.  They are  moderately large (3” – 3 ½”), quartered, and distinctively flat and saucer like, possessing a delicious fragrance. This healthy, but thorny, mannerly climber is ideally suited for use as a pillar rose, or trained on a low wall, fence, or trellis. A beautiful rose for a warm summer evening, when the white, saucer sized blossoms seem to glow in the dark.

For many, many, years, ‘Sombreuil’ has been the top winner of the Dowager Queen Award (Old Garden Roses introduced before 1867) at rose shows across the country, (including Florida). But alas, her Queenly reign has come to an end!!   The November 2006 issue of American Rose Magazine reported “The ARS Classification Committee concluded that the rose sold in the United States and elsewhere as 'Sombreuil' is not the same as the cultivar named 'Mlle de Sombreuil' originally introduced as a Tea rose by M. Robert in 1850. The cultivar currently grown and purchased in the United States under the name 'Sombreuil' is, in fact, a Large-Flowered Climber introduced into the United States, circa 1880, that does not have the typical Tea fragrance, shrub growth form, and the winter tenderness of the 1850 cultivar.  To correct this confusion, the Classification Committee has ruled that the name 'Mlle de Sombreuil' will be retained as the approved exhibition name (AEN) for the 1850 shrub-form Tea, and that the name 'Sombreuil' be used as the AEN for the Large-Flowered Climber (LCI) grown and sold in the United States.  With this change, 'Sombreuil' (LCl) will no longer be eligible for the Dowager Queen Award and must be exhibited in the Climber class.”

No matter what her classification, ‘Sombreuil’ will always hold a queenly position in my garden … a beautiful rose well worth growing.

Photo of  Sombreuil courtesy of Mike Shoup, owner of the Antique Rose Emporium, in Brenham, Texas.  Visit their web site at www.antiqueroseemporium.com