Rose Peter’s Persica, grown by Chris Warner and introduced by Wharton’s Roses in Norfolk, has been awarded the inaugural Peter Seabrook Award for Best New Plant at BBC Gardeners’ World Live.
Rose Peter’s Persica is a perpetual flowering climbing hybrid with a fragrant, vibrant yellow flower and distinctive red eye. Shown for the first time at BBC Gardeners’ World last summer, the new rose will be on sale from autumn 2023 via Thompson & Morgan.
The hotly-contested new award was launched earlier this year by the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation in honour of the late Peter Seabrook, and attracted 100 entries. Visitors to BBC Gardeners’ World Live can see Rose Peter’s Persica in all its glory, along with its fellow contenders, in an exciting new Hot Off the Potting Bench showcase display, located in the show’s spectacular Floral Marquee.
To be considered for the Peter Seabrook Award, plants entered must be new varieties, colour breaks or characteristics that improve on an existing variety, and not available for sale to the public before BBC Gardeners’ World Live opened on 15 June 2023.
Renowned horticulturalist, Jim Buttress, Chair of the Peter Seabrook Award for Best New Plant assessment panel, said: “The individual flowers of Rose Peter’s Persica really struck the assessment panel. They’re unique in a climbing rose and befit somebody who dedicated their life to finding something different.”
BBC Gardeners’ World presenter, Adam Frost, presented the award to Chris Warner at BBC Gardeners’ World today.
Runners up were Coreopsis verticillata Chorasan Burgundy & White by Volmary, a new variety with larger flowers blooming all summer long, and Vriesea Chocolate Girl, a new Vriesea bred by De Roose Plants with Don Billington of Every Picture Tells a Story.