'Gather ye rosebuds .....

while ye may, old time is still a flying. And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying'. (Herrick 1648).


Indeed, earlier today in the garden, I counted at least nine different rose bushes all 'smiling' in their own special way. From pure white, through white tinged with pink, pink flushed with orange, to pink in its own right and on to red, brighter red and the deepest of deep reds, all smiling in the morning sun.

Up to now I haven't really been into roses at all, thinking that they're more of a problem than a pleasure. All that black spot to watch for, the thorns, the lack of fragrance in modern ones etc etc. However, of late, it's come to me that they are really quite splendid plants to have in the garden and I realise, if a little late, how lucky we were to have roses still blooming through all the weeds and brambles, when we took over the garden some eight years ago. Most of those originals are still blooming. Last year I was particularly pleased with the salmon pink/orange rose that blooms in the garden at the back of the house and already this season it's flowering its heart out. The flowers have a delightful fragrance and make a charming cut flower to grace the dining table too.

My newly triggered interest in roses led me earlier in the year to buy five new, bare rooted plants from a well known rose grower. I followed all the instructions and gave them the correct dose of mycorrhizal fungi (I even weighed it out!) and rose fertilizer at planting. It paid off, we now have royalty visiting our garden in rose form, namely Princess Anne, featured above in the picture is a sweet shade of pink. A slightly prickly specimen (like its namesake?) but nonetheless welcome indeed to the mixed border. Harlow Carr, another pink one has also started to bloom, with clusters of smaller flowers and we await with anticipation the flowers from Princess Charlotte, Golden Celebration and New Dawn.

I now have a wish list of roses, well one anyway, Rhapsody in Blue, which I saw in a garden in Elham at the weekend. We were visiting their Garden Open Day for the NGS, and saw eight delightful gardens, and this rose was climbing over an obelisk in one of my favourites of all the gardens. Perhaps it's an age thing, but I found myself trying to drop off to sleep last night, planning where I could put such an obelisk, and one of those roses.
Answers on a postcard please!