Love Song™: the second rose I ever planted

Love Song™ was the second rose I ever planted. Koko Loko® came first, the one that pulled me down the rabbit hole, and Love Song™ was the one that made me stay. If Koko Loko® taught me that a rose could surprise you, Love Song™ taught me that a rose could keep surprising you, week after week, from late spring until the first hard frost.

Why I fell for it

Love Song™ is a lavender floribunda with a soft lavender purple color that stays true even as the bloom ages. But the color, as much as I love it, isn't really what hooked me. What hooked me was the form. Every bloom opens in that old-fashioned, cupped, faintly ruffled way, the kind of shape you expect from an heirloom garden rose on a plant that acts like a modern one. It flowers in clusters, holds itself upright, and repeats reliably. You get the romance of a David Austin with the workhorse habit of a florist rose.

It's the rose that convinced me a garden could be a life's work, not a summer project.

The perfume

The fragrance surprised me the most. Most lavender roses lean powdery or soapy, pretty from a distance but thin up close. Love Song™ goes the other way. It's light and citrus-forward, like fresh lemon zest laid over a soft rose base. On a warm afternoon a single stem will scent an entire room, and it doesn't turn cloying the way heavier damasks sometimes do. If you're the sort of gardener who leans in to every bloom, this is one worth planting near a path.

How it behaves in the garden

Love Song™ is one of the most obliging roses I've grown. It stands around three to four feet tall in my Oregon garden, with clean, matte foliage and a tidy, cooperative shape. It can be prone to a little black spot in our wet springs, but the plant pushes through in the summer and keeps on blooming. The canes are sturdy enough to hold the flower clusters upright without staking, and the whole plant has none of the sprawl I've had to argue with on other floribundas.

What really sold me was the rebloom. After the first flush in late spring, it barely takes a breath before starting the next round. Deadhead lightly, feed after each flush, and you'll have flowers on the bush from May through October. In a season, a single Love Song™ plant will hand you more usable stems than almost any other garden rose I've grown.

Cutting and arranging

The stems are long enough for the vase without being awkward, and the vase life is genuinely excellent. I usually get six to eight days, longer if I recut and refresh the water. I like to cut Love Song™ just as the outer petals begin to loosen. The flower keeps opening indoors and moves through several beautiful stages before it's done. Paired with silvery foliage like dusty miller, olive, or a bit of eucalyptus, it looks like something out of a French still life.

Cut it young. Watch it open on the kitchen counter. It will be a different rose by Sunday.

The reason I keep planting it

There are showier roses in my garden now, and rarer ones, and older ones with more romantic backstories. Love Song™ is none of those things. It is a modern American floribunda with a clean lavender color, a lemon-cream perfume, and a habit of blooming until the frost finally stops it. And it was the second rose I ever planted, the one that turned a new hobby into an actual practice.

If Koko Loko® was the flirtation, Love Song™ was the commitment. I keep planting it because it works: reliable color, strong stems, great vase life, and a fragrance that doesn't quit. If you'd like to add Love Song™ to your own garden, you can find it here.