The rose takes its name from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem The Lady of Shalott. David Austin introduced it in 2009 to mark 200 years since Tennyson's birth, a fitting tribute from one very English institution to another.

The poem tells of a woman under a mysterious curse, shut away in a tower on an island in the river that flows down to Camelot. She may not look at the world directly. Instead she watches its reflection in a mirror and weaves what she sees into a tapestry. Tennyson sets her tower among the fields, where "Four gray walls, and four gray towers, Overlook a space of flowers".

In time she tires of living second-hand. "I am half sick of shadows," she says. When Sir Lancelot rides past, flashing in the sunlight, she turns to the window, the mirror cracks, and she drifts down the river to Camelot in a boat bearing her name.

If you know the story, it's probably through John William Waterhouse's 1888 painting at Tate Britain: a pale figure in a boat, a lantern, autumn reeds and a tapestry trailing in the water. Hold that image in mind and look again at the rose. The warm candle-glow colours, the cupped blooms like a lamp in the dusk, the sense of something bright stepping out of the grey. Whether by design or happy accident, it is a very good match.

The colour is the first thing you notice, and it never sits still. The buds open salmon-red, the petals turn to warm apricot and orange, and the undersides are a bright golden yellow. Because the blooms are cupped, you see both at once, so each flower looks shot through with light. Older blooms soften towards peach, which means a single shrub carries a whole sunset's worth of tones at any one time.

The flowers are chalice-shaped and loosely ruffled, generous without being fussy. They come in clusters and keep coming, in flushes from early summer well into autumn.

Then there's the scent. It's a warm tea fragrance, with hints of spiced apple and clove in the background. It isn't the heavy, old-rose perfume that knocks you over from a metre away. It's more of a reward for leaning in, and it tends to be strongest on warm, still evenings.

The growth habit is upright and bushy, with leaves that start with a reddish tinge before turning glossy green. It's a rose with a bit of backbone: it stands up for itself in wind and rain, and it doesn't sulk.

For all its romance, Lady of Shalott is refreshingly easy-going. It has a reputation as one of the toughest, most disease-resistant English roses, shrugging off the black spot and mildew that trouble fussier varieties. That makes it a lovely first rose for a nervous beginner, and a reliable workhorse for anyone who'd rather enjoy their roses than spray them.

As a shrub it grows to roughly 1.2 metres tall and a little less across. Give it sun for at least half the day, decent soil and a good mulch in spring. Deadhead through summer to keep the flowers coming, and prune it back by about a third in late winter. That's really all it asks.

Tennyson's lady spent her life watching the world through a mirror, until she finally turned to face the real thing. There's something of that in a good garden plant. You can admire roses in catalogues and photographs for years, but the real pleasure is in the living version: the bud that's a shade darker this morning than last night, the scent on a warm evening, the glow when the light comes in low.

Lady of Shalott gives you that, season after season, with very little fuss. It's warm, generous, tough and full of stories. If there's a sunny spot in your garden that could use a little light of its own, it may be just the rose you're looking for.