Roots and Routes

Rosa ‘Queen Elizabeth’

• Introduced by Germain’s Seed Technology in 1954
• Bred by Walter Lammerts
• Class: Grandiflora
• Classic shell-pink that soften to a silvery-pink as it matures
• Mild, sweet, traditional tea-rose fragrance
• Parentage: Charlotte Armstrong x Floradora

The Queen Elizabeth rose produces elegant, clear pink blooms held high on long, upright stems, giving the rose a stately presence that seems especially appropriate for its royal name.

Bred in California by Dr. Walter E. Lammerts by crossing a hybrid tea with a floribunda, its combination of characteristics was considered so distinctive that it helped establish the Grandiflora class of roses. Queen Elizabeth received the All-America Rose Selections award in 1955 and was voted a World’s Favourite Rose in 1979, making it the second rose inducted into the World Federation of Rose Societies Rose Hall of Fame.

Named in honor of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, who ascended the British throne in 1952, the rose appeared at the very beginning of a reign that would ultimately span 70 years, making Elizabeth II the longest-reigning monarch in British history. Over the decades, the rose bearing her name achieved an extraordinary longevity of its own, remaining a garden favorite around the world and earning some of the highest honors in the rose world. With its tall, commanding growth and graceful pink flowers, Queen Elizabeth has become an enduring floral tribute to a monarch whose reign came to define an era.