Commercially available

• Virtipu

4 favorite votes.  

Red blend Shrub.
Registration name: Virtipu
Exhibition name: Tipu's Flame™

Bred by M.S. Viraraghavan (India, 2005).
Introduced in United States by Roses Unlimited in 2005 as 'Tipu's Flame'.

Shrub.  

Red, white reverse.  None to mild fragrance.  26 to 40 petals.  Average diameter 4".  Medium, full (26-40 petals), cluster-flowered, in small clusters bloom form.  Occasional repeat later in the season.  

Medium, bushy.  Medium, semi-glossy, dark green foliage.  

Height: up to 42" (up to 105cm).  

USDA zone 6b through 9b (default).  Can be used for beds and borders, cut flower, garden or hedge.  Remove spent blooms to encourage re-bloom.  Spring Pruning: Remove old canes and dead or diseased wood and cut back canes that cross. In warmer climates, cut back the remaining canes by about one-third. In colder areas, you'll probably find you'll have to prune a little more than that.  

Dense, healthy, shrubby growth, very free flowering.

This is the name both in India and the West. Both of us have been very taken, fascinated, with Tipu Sultan, a king of the southern kingdom of Mysore ( which is now in the State of Karnataka) in the 1700’s. Tipu Sultan fought very bravely against the encroaching British, who, first as the East India Company which later morphed into the Government of Britain, had imperial designs upon the whole of India. The British extended their dominions by a series of wars against local Indian rulers and annexing of their kingdoms. Tipu was killed in 1799 in the last of the Anglo-Mysore wars. Called ‘Tippoo Saib’ by the British, he was in touch with Napoleon, whose help he sought to fight the British.
Tipu was a great lover of roses, and created two huge rose gardens in his capital Srirangapatna (called Seringapatam by the British) and in nearby Bangalore, calling them ‘Lal baghs’ which translates as ‘Red gardens’, because he had so many red roses planted in them.

Despite vanquishing and killing him, the British obviously looked on him as a romantic figure. In 1844 a ‘rosy crimson beautiful’ rose called ‘Tippoo Saib’ was listed in the ‘Gardeners Magazine of Botany and Horticulture’. Ranunculus, tulips and gladiolus too were named for him!!
We had always wanted to name one of our roses for this historical figure who shared our love for roses and when we had this variety which has bright red flowers with a white reverse, and which is a prolific bloomer with clusters of flowers, we thought ‘Tipu’s Flame’ would be an apt tribute.