Thank you so much Jedmar for your pictures of ‘Gardenia’. I certainly did appreciate them. I grow the same ‘Gardenia’ (provenance Zephyr Brook 7-17, 1999) but I have struggled over it for years because there was such confusion in the literature. I had actually thought it may be ‘Fernand Tanne’ but am now happy to reinstate the name of ‘Gardenia’. There is confusion in Australia and New Zealand with a semi-double rose - which looks like Alister Clark’s ‘Milkmaid’. However, the lookalike sets no hips, or very few, and Alister Clark’s “sets quantities of [orange] seed pods in winter.” This rose, Manda’s ‘Gardenia’ set plum or purple hips for me in the first few years, but I have not particularly noticed hips recently.

I find it interesting that Jersey Beauty and Gardenia had the same parents, breeder and birth date: (same seed pod?) ‘Jersey Beauty’ for me sets round red hips and Manda’s ‘Gardenia’ once set purple hips. There is no evidence this morning of ‘Gardenia’s' hips. (And by the way, a spring garden which has just been rained on and viewed in early morning with dressing gown hoicked up around the legs, is an especially beautiful thing.) There is an early reference which refers to ‘Gardenia’ “incurving towards evening to perfect imitation of [ the] Gardenia” and I look forward to this year’s flowering to observe.