Why is there a Rose of the Year 2014 already??

Rose of the Year 2014
About the Rose of the Year Trials:

British rose breeders enter their most promising new roses into a six year nationwide trial, which ensures that the roses are tested in a variety of soil and climate conditions. Flower and plant form, colour, scent, abundance of bloom, health and easy maintenance are all considered important characteristics of a Rose of the Year.
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Bred by Harkness Roses, Lady Marmalade ('Hartiger') combines modern rose quality and vintage charm. Sweetly scented, cabbage-style blooms are set off by glossy foliage that shows good disease tolerance. Blooms are usually five to seven per cluster, with up to 50 petals per bloom.
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The Rose of the year began in 1982, when the yellow Floribunda Mountbatten (‘Harmantelle’) was the first winner. Ten years later Mountbatten received the RHS Award of Garden Merit and is still recognised as an excellent variety. Last month at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, the 2014 Rose Of The Year award-winner was announced – Lady Marmalade (‘Hartiger’).

Lady Marmalade is a neat Floribunda rose reaching about 90cm in height. The 10cm flowers are a gorgeous rich and bright tangerine with amber overtones, cupped in the old fashioned style with about fifty petals in each flower and with the outer petals reflexing attractively as the flowers mature. With up to eleven flowers in each cluster the impact is impressive and, especially with regular dead-heading, the flowers keep coming from June into the autumn.

And then of course there’s the scent. Rated by the breeder as 6, the fragrance is not exceptionally outstanding – that would rate a 10 – but the spicy perfume is certainly impressive.
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Rose Of The Year® was introduced in 1982 and its aim is to discover by trials the best rose(s) in any given year.
Rose breeders are invited, through Roses UK, to enter what they consider to be the best of their up and coming varieties in to the Rose of the Year competition; generally up to 20 varieties are submitted annually.
Trials are conducted throughout the UK from as far north as Aberdeen, to Hampshire in the South, Northern Ireland and East Anglia with the varieties trialled in different soil and climate conditions.
The trial lasts for a two year period and is judged by both amateurs and professional with the most worthy variety being
selected as Rose Of The Year®. Selection is some 6 years in advance of its availability to allow for the building up of sufficient stock levels for its introduction to the public.

 

The problem with judging anything from budgerigars to roses is that all judge's have their own particular favourite likes and dislikes,and if you know what a particular judge likes or favours then your halfway their lets say a simple example is that one judge dislikes a full petal so it wouldn't be any good entering a rose with a full petals in a particular class if you knew this judge was judging