Revisiting the Hardy, Floriferous and Intensely Scented Varieties That Joseph Pemberton Left the World
The centenary of Joseph Pemberton’s death in 1926 offers a beautiful moment to pause and consider the group of roses that bears his greatest legacy — the hybrid musks. A century on, these shrubs have not merely survived in the garden; they have quietly triumphed.
A Rosarian and His Legacy
Joseph Hardwick Pemberton was not the kind of man who courted fame. A Church of England vicar based in Havering-atte-Bower in Essex, he spent his clerical years tending both his flock and his garden with equal devotion. He had been a keen exhibitor of Hybrid Teas in the early twentieth century, but it was in retirement that he turned his attention to breeding a new class of shrub rose — one that combined hardiness, repeat flowering, scent and grace in a single plant. The results, released between around 1913 and his death in 1926, changed the course of rose history.
Pemberton called his creations hybrid musks, though the connection to the true musk rose (Rosa moschata) is somewhat tenuous and much debated by botanists. The real ancestry of most hybrid musks traces back through the Noisette class and certain multi-flowered ramblers, with Trier — a vigorous cluster-flowering rose bred by Peter Lambert in 1904 — playing a particularly significant role as a parent. What matters in the garden, however, is not the pedigree on paper but the performance in the border, and there hybrid musks have an argument that few other rose classes can match.
After Pemberton’s death, his work was continued faithfully by his head gardener Ann Bentall and her husband John, who released several additional varieties including the beloved Ballerina in 1937. J.A. Bentall followed soon after. These releases ensured that the hybrid musk family was large and varied enough to find a place in almost any garden.
What Makes a Hybrid Musk?
The defining characteristics of the class are remarkably consistent across varieties, which is part of what makes them so useful to the garden designer.
Growth habit. Hybrid musks are true shrub roses, typically forming rounded, arching bushes between 1.2 and 2 metres in height and spread. They are not climbers, though some of the more vigorous — Cornelia, Felicia, Penelope — can be trained loosely against a fence or pillar with some persuasion. Their natural inclination is to billow outward, softening hard edges and filling a border with generous, leafy presence.
Flower form. The flowers are borne in large, open clusters rather than singly on long stems. Individual blooms are typically semi-double or loosely double, cupped or flat, and considerably smaller than those of a Hybrid Tea. This is not a failing but a virtue: the overall effect of a fully open cluster is one of irresistible abundance, almost cloud-like in quality, especially in the pale-coloured varieties.
Scent. Here lies perhaps the hybrid musk’s greatest distinction. The fragrance is carried in the stamens rather than in the petals, which means it is most intense when blooms are newly opened and in warm conditions. The quality of scent varies by variety — Buff Beauty is warm and rich with a hint of tea, Cornelia has a fruity sweetness, Penelope is delicately musky and clean — but the shared characteristic is that it travels. On a still evening in July, a mature Buff Beauty in full second flush can perfume a substantial garden, and the scent reaches you before the rose comes into view. This is a quality almost entirely absent from modern large-flowered roses, and it goes a long way toward explaining why gardeners who discover hybrid musks rarely abandon them.
Repeat flowering. Unlike old roses that give their all in a single spectacular June flush, hybrid musks are reliably remontant. Most varieties produce their first bloom in June or early July, rest briefly through high summer, and then push out a generous second flush in August and September, with some continuing into October in sheltered gardens. The autumn flowering is often as generous as the first, and the lower angle of light at that season adds a particularly beautiful warmth to the softer colours.
Foliage and constitution. The leaves are handsome, dark and typically glossy, resistant to disease, and persistent into late autumn. The plants are genuinely hardy — more so than many modern roses — and while they appreciate good soil and some feeding, they tolerate conditions that would daunt a Hybrid Tea. They do not demand the kind of anxious mollycoddling that makes some gardeners turn away from roses altogether.
The Essential Varieties
Any honest guide must begin with the acknowledgement that all the best hybrid musks are excellent, and that choosing between them is largely a matter of colour scheme and garden scale. That said, some varieties stand above others in terms of performance, consistency and sheer beauty.
Buff Beauty is the variety that converts most people to the class. Its flowers open from apricot-amber buds into loosely double blooms of warm buff-yellow, fading gracefully to cream as they age. The overall effect of an open cluster is of something between a watercolour painting and a bowl of clotted cream, and the scent is rich and honeyed. It grows to around 1.5 metres and is among the most disease-resistant of the group. It was introduced by Ann Bentall in 1939, though its precise origins have never been entirely resolved.
Penelope is slightly older, released by Pemberton himself in 1924, and it remains one of the most popular roses in English gardens for very good reason. The flowers are semi-double, opening blush-pink and fading to cream with a hint of apricot at the centre. In autumn, if spent flowers are not deadheaded, it produces attractive coral-pink hips that extend its interest well into winter. It is vigorous, healthy, strongly scented and adaptable — capable of growing as a free-standing shrub, a hedge, or even as a loose wall plant.
Cornelia is among the most floriferous of the group. Its small rosette flowers, borne in enormous clusters, are apricot-pink in bud opening to a warm strawberry-pink flushed with copper, with the colour deepening in cool weather. The scent is distinctly fruity. It is one of the most vigorous hybrid musks, capable of reaching 2 metres or more, and its autumn flowering is exceptional. It is also among the best for cutting, as a whole stem of open flower clusters has tremendous presence in a vase.
Felicia is often cited as the most elegant of the family. Its flowers are a clear soft pink with a hint of salmon, double and neatly quartered, and the habit of the plant is graceful rather than exuberant. The scent is clean and sweet. It grows to around 1.5 metres and is particularly happy trained horizontally along a fence, where this treatment encourages exceptional flowering.
Ballerina stands somewhat apart from the others. Its flowers are single, tiny, five-petalled, pink with a white eye — exactly like an apple blossom — and borne in enormous rounded heads that cover the plant completely at peak flowering. It produces no perceptible scent to speak of, but the visual effect of a mature bush in full bloom is extraordinary, and it has a third quality not shared by many of the group: it grows contentedly in a large container. It is also useful as a standard. Released by Ann Bentall in 1937, it remains in near-universal cultivation.
Prosperity bears white flowers with a hint of cream, double and neatly formed, in generous clusters. It is among the tallest of the group and one of the best for late autumn flowering, often producing its most impressive display in October.
Moonlight, one of Pemberton’s earliest introductions from around 1913, is a semi-climber with single or nearly single creamy-white flowers and distinctive dark stems and foliage. Its scent is light but genuine. It is not always easy to source but well worth seeking out.
Thisbe deserves wider recognition. Its flowers open from pointed apricot buds into semi-double creamy-yellow rosettes with warm apricot centres, and the contrast between bud and open bloom on a single cluster is particularly lovely. Strongly scented, reliably healthy and not too large.
In the Garden: How to Use Them
The adaptability of hybrid musks is one of their great strengths, and a thoughtful gardener can put them to work in several quite different ways.
The mixed border is their natural home. A hybrid musk placed toward the back of a deep border provides a permanent flowering shrub that earns its place from June to October while offering a neutral, foliage-rich backdrop for perennials in front. Buff Beauty associates beautifully with warm-toned companions — bronze fennel, Helenium in shades of copper and amber, Achillea ‘Terracotta’, the grass Stipa gigantea. Cornelia and Felicia work equally well with cooler companions — Salvia nemorosa, Geranium ‘Rozanne’, Nepeta, Campanula lactiflora.
As a hedge. Penelope is the classic choice for an informal flowering hedge, and few sights in a cottage garden are more gratifying than a well-established length of it in full second flush, threaded through with the last Clematis viticella flowers of the season. Ballerina also makes an admirable low to medium hedge, dense enough to deter intrusion and spectacular enough to justify its position as a garden feature in its own right.
Training on structures. The more vigorous hybrid musks — Cornelia, Felicia, Buff Beauty — can be persuaded along a fence or over a low wall, and when so trained they produce markedly more flowers than when grown as free-standing bushes. Secure the main stems as horizontally as possible, as this encourages the formation of short flowering laterals all along the cane.
Underplanting. Hybrid musks generally produce an open, airy canopy that allows light to reach the ground beneath them, and they are among the more amenable shrubs to underplanting. Hardy geraniums, Alchemilla mollis, hostas, and low-growing bulbs all establish comfortably beneath them.
Cultivation
Hybrid musks are not difficult, but they respond visibly to good treatment.
Planting. As with all roses, bare-root planting in autumn or winter is preferable to container planting, though both are effective. Choose a position with at least half a day of sun. In full shade, flowering is reduced and scent diminished; in full sun, the flowers of some varieties bleach faster than is ideal, though the plants themselves are perfectly content.
Prepare the ground generously — deep digging, organic matter incorporated, and if the site has previously grown roses, either replace the top 45cm of soil or choose a different position to avoid replant disease.
Pruning. The most common mistake with hybrid musks is under-pruning. Many gardeners, intimidated by their apparent vigour, give them only a light trim and are then surprised when the plants become congested and flower less freely. The correct approach is more confident: in late winter or early March, shorten all main stems by approximately one-third and cut side shoots back hard to two or three buds. Remove dead, diseased and crossing wood entirely. Every three or four years, cut one or two of the oldest main stems to the base to encourage vigorous replacement growth. This is precisely the regime described for David Austin’s English roses, and not coincidentally: hybrid musks and English roses share a great deal of practical overlap.
Deadheading. Where you want to maximise repeat flowering and are not interested in hips, deadhead promptly after the first flush. With cluster roses this means removing the entire spent truss, cutting back to a strong leaf or bud. A few varieties — notably Penelope — are worth leaving undeadheaded in at least one part of the garden specifically for their hips.
Feeding. A generous mulch of well-rotted manure or garden compost applied in late winter or early spring, combined with a balanced rose fertiliser applied after the first flush, is all that most hybrid musks require. They are notably less hungry than Hybrid Teas.
Pests and disease. Hybrid musks are among the healthiest of all rose classes. Blackspot and rust are rarely serious problems. Aphids may appear on new growth in spring and should be treated promptly, but infestations rarely persist. Overall, this is a group that can be grown with a clear conscience by those who prefer not to spray.
Sourcing and the Present Day
One potential frustration for the enthusiast is that, while the most popular varieties are stocked by most good rose nurseries, some of the less celebrated hybrid musks can be difficult to track down. Specialist rose nurseries — David Austin Roses, Peter Beales Roses, and a handful of others — maintain the widest ranges and are the first port of call. It is worth contacting the Royal National Rose Society or checking the HelpMeFind online rose database to locate nurseries holding specific varieties.
The hybrid musks are classified as Old Roses by the Royal Horticultural Society for show purposes, which occasionally causes confusion — they are not, of course, old in the sense that Gallicas or Damasks are old, but they predate the modern rose era as conventionally defined, and their character is sufficiently distinct from the contemporary large-flowered rose to justify the distinction.
Several of the key varieties hold the RHS Award of Garden Merit, that reliably useful indicator of plants that perform consistently well in UK conditions. Buff Beauty, Penelope, Ballerina, Cornelia and Felicia are all holders, and the award in each case reflects decades of observed garden performance rather than a single season’s trial.
Why They Endure
The centenary of Pemberton’s death might have passed unremarked had hybrid musks been merely a historical curiosity — beautiful in their time, superseded by better things. But they have not been superseded. In an era of lavish, large-flowered English shrub roses that have dominated the gardening conversation for four decades, the hybrid musks continue to hold their own. They do not always win the beauty contest at a glance — their individual flowers are smaller and less glamorous than a fully double English rose in its prime — but they win on terms that matter more in a working garden: reliability, health, scent that actually travels, and a grace of habit that the heavier, denser modern shrubs cannot always match.
There is also something to be said for the idea of the garden as a kind of living archive. To grow Penelope or Buff Beauty is to grow something with an unbroken line back to Pemberton’s Essex garden, to a particular moment in horticultural history when an amateur clergyman, working without institutional support or commercial pressure, devoted his later years to the quiet perfection of a new kind of rose. That the results have proved so lasting is a tribute both to his skill as a breeder and to the fundamental rightness of what he was trying to achieve: a rose beautiful enough to earn its place, tough enough to earn its keep, and fragrant enough to justify the whole enterprise of growing roses at all.
A century on, the hybrid musks are not merely survivors. They are, as they have always been, roses for people who want roses that actually work.
Key varieties to seek out: Buff Beauty, Penelope, Cornelia, Felicia, Ballerina, Prosperity, Thisbe, Moonlight, Vanity, Pax, Eva, Wilhelm.
For sourcing, contact: David Austin Roses (davidaustinroses.com), Peter Beales Roses (classicroses.co.uk), or consult the RHS Plant Finder.
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