Also Known As:  'English Dawn'
Introduced:   1983, David Austin, UK
Class:  Shrub / English
Zones:  4-9
Parentage:  Sport of 'Red Coat'
Flowers: Pink, silver reverse, yellow stamens;
Single, 4" - 5"
Size:  6 x 8 feet (warm climates)
5 x 4 feet (cool climates)
Fragrance:  Light
Of note:  Warm pink blooms borne continuously on a healthy shrub make this the best of the David Austin single-flowered roses.

A sport of 'Red Coat', 'Dapple Dawn' bears large, four to five inch blooms of single-flowered form. Warm pink petals move to a creamy white color towards the center of the bloom, and prominent yellow stamens add to the relaxed character of the blossoms.   Due to the informality of the flowers , 'Dapple Dawn' makes an excellent choice for the informal or cottage garden.  Growing to a robust eight feet, 'Dapple Dawn' does best at the back or middle of the border.

The attractive flowers are borne continuously throughout the entire season; often the shrub will be covered in a mass of bloom.  Despite a general healthy and vigorous demeanor, 'Dapple Dawn' is slightly susceptible to blackspot.

The name 'Dapple Dawn' is named for a line in the sonnet 'The Windhover' by English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. 

'The Windhover'
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,--the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, o my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shee`r plo`d makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
-Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844-1889