‘Buff Beauty’: A Classic Rose For Your Part Shade Garden

Whimsical breeze throws
veils of blush rose petals at
bumblebee wedding

It’s almost time to bid so long to my ‘Climbing Buff Beauty’ rose for the season. The wave of heat we’ve had this weekend is bringing her glory to a close. The breeze keeps sending little parties of pale petals dancing across the garden.

I think she has never looked as beautiful as she does this year. Bloom has been abundant and healthy, and one rogue cane has arched up through my small star magnolia tree and popped out the top, giving the tree a topknot of apricot blooms.

The Story of ‘Buff Beauty’ Rose

This gorgeous hybrid musk rose was introduced in England in 1939. She was bred by Ann Bentall, although (typical of the times) her husband John Bentall was generally credited with the rose’s development. Ann bred two of the five most popular roses in modern times – ‘The Fairy’ and ‘Ballerina’, but she has never been included among the great rose hybridizers.

How to Grow ‘Buff Beauty’ Rose

This award-winning rose has lovely trusses of fluffy apricot/buff flowers (my favourite rose colour). She is very fragrant, although the flower stems are a bit floppy, so she doesn’t make a great cut rose.

‘Buff Beauty’ is listed as a large shrub rose that can grow up to 150cm x 150cm. The stems are dark red, which contrast well with the peachy blooms.

This peach-toned rose does amazingly well for me, as it is tolerant of a bit of shade and poor soils. That’s a good thing as she is growing in a spot in my garden that checks both those boxes.

I recently discovered I may not have to say goodbye to this beauty for the year yet; a good pruning in the next few weeks should bring on a late season rebloom. I checked the Heirloom Roses website to get info on this, as I am not a pruning expert yet. Scroll down to Summer Pruning on their page to find out how to prune for rebloom.

UPDATE, May 30, 2022 — This article was written the summer before we moved from the Vancouver area to the British Columbia Okanagan. Sadly, I was not able to bring my ‘Buff Beauty’ rose with me when I moved to the Okanagan. I just didn’t think it would survive being dug up and moved to this very different climate. But I’ll remember her fondly.