THE forthcoming Ryedale Rose Festival will include the launch of a new rose, named after the much-loved author and broadcaster Joe Maiden who died 2015.

The rose will be named Rosa Joe Maiden and has been described by the British Isles Rose Society as an “absolute belter”.

Mr Maiden, who died in September 2015, was a long-serving presenter of BBC Radio Leeds’ Sunday morning gardening show and had been the station’s on-air gardening expert for more than 40 years.

He also ran a horticultural business in Huby.

A festival spokesman said: “There will be only a handful of Joe Maiden roses available this season, and they will be auctioned at the festival to raise funds for Joe’s favourite charities, where bidding is expected to be keen.”

The Ryedale Rose Festival, which will take place at RV Roger’s nursery in Pickering on July 8 and 9, aims to be a “free rose-filled weekend for the whole family, a blaze of colour and scent with live music, hot and cold refreshments, crafts, displays, and demonstrations”.

The festival is also a major event on the rose exhibitors’ calendar, and is well established at the RV Roger nursery, where more than 50,000 roses of 650 varieties of roses are grown annually.

The festival incorporates the British Isles Rose Society flagship annual show and awards ceremony, which re-sited to the nursery five years ago.

Since then, it has grown into one of the premier showcase events for rose growers and rose fanciers across the UK, with about 1,200 visitors attending over the weekend of last year’s event.