Rosa 'Gertrude Jekyll' (registered cultivar name: Ausbord) is one of the most iconic and successful English Roses ever bred by David Austin. Introduced in 1986, it was recently voted the “World’s Favourite Rose” (2025) by the World Federation of Rose Societies. It is globally revered for producing what is widely considered the absolute quintessential, textbook "old rose" fragrance.
Key Characteristics
Classification: English Shrub Rose / Short Climber. It is dual-purpose: depending on how you prune it, it can be grown as a bushy shrub or trained upwards as a climber.
The Blooms: Perfectly scrolled buds expand into massive, fully double, quartered rosette-shaped flowers (up to 80 petals). They display a rich, glowing bright pink hue that gradually softens to a pale pink toward the outer edges.
Fragrance: Powerfully scented (10/10 rating). Its rich, heavy, and perfectly balanced old-rose damask perfume is so potent that it is frequently used as the benchmark fragrance profile in the perfume industry.
Flowering Habit: Excellent repeat-flowering. Notably, it is almost always one of the very first roses to open in the garden each May, flushing in continuous waves all the way through to October.
Size & Architecture: As a shrub, it maintains a vigorous, upright habit reaching roughly 1.1m x 0.9m. If left unpruned and trained upward as a short climber, its flexible canes can easily stretch to 2.5m (8 feet)