Featured Rose of the Month- June
by Gill Smits

(Fairy Queen, Fairy on my deck, "The Fairy" (common, of 1932), Crystal Fairy)

THE FAIRY
 
The Fairy is often a favorite bush amongst rose gardeners and non-rose gardeners alike, and the reasons for this are pretty obvious.  This robust, vigorous and extremely healthy polyantha, has excellent winter hardiness and is an exceptionally easy to grow plant.  It is compact in size, spreading in habit, growing up to 3ft by 3ft, has great dark green, glossy, disease resistant foliage, and makes an excellent landscape or border plant for mass plantings.  In addition it grows equally well in containers. I grow 3 of these bushes in window boxes on my deck and the profusion of flowers into the fall make an impressive statement of color and soften the sides of my deck by trailing over both sides.  In fact, this plant is rarely without flowers.  Sprays of rosette shaped blooms grow in clusters and are small, double and ruffled, soft pink in color and have been said to have a light apple fragrance although in my opinion, there is no fragrance.  The Fairy was originally introduced in 1932 and has an ARS rating of 8.5.  An important note to mention regarding this rose is that it tolerates humidity and light shade very well which makes it a very versatile plant. Other variations of The Fairy are “Fairy Queen” which is a deep red-pink, and “Crystal Fairy” which is glowing white.