A rose can be more than a beautiful flower. Sometimes it carries a name that sparks your curiosity. Emily Brontë by David Austin is one such rose. Behind her soft pink flowers lies the story of an English writer, a wild landscape and a book that is still read almost two centuries later.
At Belle Epoque, we love telling the stories behind roses like these. Because once you know the story behind a name, a rose in your garden becomes even more special.
Who was Emily Brontë?
Emily Brontë grew up in Haworth, a village in West Yorkshire, in the north of England. Together with her sisters Charlotte and Anne, she lived in the parsonage, close to vast moorlands. All three became writers.
Imagine a landscape of rolling hills, narrow paths and a wind barely held back by trees. That landscape played an important role in Emily’s imagination. It became the setting for her novel Wuthering Heights, published in 1847 and known in Dutch as Woeste Hoogten.
Emily died a year later, at the age of thirty. She wrote only one novel, but it made her name world-famous.
Where are the Wuthering Heights?
Wuthering Heights is not a village or a mountain region. It is the name of a fictional house in the book, in a remote part of the Yorkshire moors. The word ‘wuthering’ refers to the roaring of the wind around such an exposed place.
The house is fictional, but you can visit the landscape. Around Haworth, you can still walk across the moors where the Brontë sisters liked to spend time. The ruins of Top Withins are often mentioned as a possible inspiration for the house. Whether that is truly the case is uncertain, but the surroundings bring the atmosphere of the book close.
A love that turns everything upside down
The story revolves around Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. As a child, Heathcliff is taken in by the Earnshaw family. He and Catherine grow up together and form an intense bond, but differences in background and social position stand in the way of their happiness.
Catherine eventually chooses to marry the well-to-do Edgar Linton. Heathcliff feels betrayed. His grief turns into bitterness and revenge, with consequences for both families and their children.
It is therefore a dark and moving story in which love, pride and loss intertwine. The turbulent natural surroundings heighten the atmosphere: outside, the wind sweeps across the moors, while inside, the emotions are just as stormy.
From writer to David Austin rose
In 2018, two hundred years after Emily’s birth, David Austin introduced the rose ‘Emily Brontë’. The name was chosen at the request of the Brontë Society.
A beautiful tribute: her name lives on both on bookshelves and among the flowers. The rose is not a historical variety from Emily’s own time, but a modern English shrub rose.
Soft pink flowers with a warm heart
The flowers of ‘Emily Brontë’ have a soft appearance. They open into richly filled, fairly flat rosettes, with soft pink outer petals and warm apricot tones at the centre. As they age, the colours fade towards cream.
Because not all the flowers open at the same time, you see different shades side by side. This gives the shrub a lively, natural appearance. The full flowers look beautiful among airy ornamental grasses, catmint or salvia.
A rose worth stopping to smell
Her strong fragrance also makes her special. David Austin describes a tea fragrance that develops towards old rose, with notes of lemon and grapefruit.
So give her a spot you pass often. By the patio, beside a garden path or close to a seating area. That way, you can not only admire the flowers, but also pause to smell them.
A place for Emily Brontë in your garden
‘Emily Brontë’ grows into a bushy, upright shrub approximately 125 centimetres tall and 110 centimetres wide. She flowers in several flushes and fits beautifully in a mixed border, rose bed or spacious pot.
A sunny spot or light partial shade is suitable. Give her enough space so that her shape and flowers remain clearly visible.
At Belle Epoque, you will find Emily Brontë among our David Austin English roses. A beautiful choice for anyone who loves soft colours, fragrant flowers and a story behind the rose.
Perhaps, when her first flowers open, you will think for a moment of that distant English moorland. Of a young writer who found her inspiration there. And of how, so many years later, her name continues to bloom in your garden.
Heel mooi geschreven.
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