Roses…..and lots more

My favourite plants have to be roses, not just any roses though, more particularly old fashioned shrub roses.  What’s not to love? I really don’t mind that they only flower once and that if we get too much rain before they open the buds “ball” and don’t open at all. When they are in full flower you can forgive them anything,  the petals are like ruffled silk and the scent makes up for everything.   Our garden soil is very sandy so not ideal for roses but I WILL grow them and in fact the old fashioned ones seem to cope reasonably well.  Yes we do have black spot on some but isn’t that meant to be a sign of clean air?   The answer is to mulch them thoroughly with garden compost and pick up and bin affected leaves when they fall.  Looking round the garden we now have a good selection of roses but I am sure more could be squeezed in if I tried.  By the gate we have Rosa rugosa which has highly scented flowers followed by massive hips. We have planted Charles de Mills, Tuscany Superb – both of which are pictured above – Louise Odier, Katharina Zeimet, Mme Alfred Carriere, Comte de Chambourd, Reine de Violette, Belvedere and Mme Hardy.  Not to mention a couple of others one of which is, I think, a rugosa with quite small flowers and a moss rose.  These were both given to us by a friend, they were taking over her garden so clumps were dug up and handed over to us, now they are taking over ours!  Sadly the friend didn’t know their names, but it doesn’t matter at all. The one I have so far forgotten to mention is Felicite de Perpetue who has been banished to the orchard!  This rambler has abundant clusters of very small flowers with an unusual scent, maybe the only rose whose fragrance I am not too keen on.   However it is far too vigorous for the garden,  I have lost count of the number of times we cut it down to the ground only for it to bounce back up stronger than ever.  If you took your eye off it for too long the stems would have grown several feet seemingly overnight and if you weren’t careful you would get ensnared by it as you walked past. It is now planted next to the hedge in the orchard and will have its top lopped off when the hedge gets cut in the winter but other than that it can ramble as far as it likes and I know we will enjoy it all the more in its wilder surroundings.

We also grow a small number of David Austin roses. This year we are trying Desdemona (white flowers) and Olivia Rose Austin (pink flowers) in huge terracotta pots on a small terrace area.They are recommended for growing in pots and so far are looking lovely. Gertrude Jekyll is another favourite that has been growing without any trouble at all against a pergola for several years.

Of course with roses you have to have Philadelphus too and we are currently enjoying Belle Etoile whose scent is intoxicating.   The flowers are quite large with a purple ring in the centre.  A good plant to have by the gate to greet you as you come back from a dog walk.

This coming weekend sees the fourth time we have opened the garden for Charity, along with others in the village.  We have weeded and weeded and still more pop up but there is plenty to enjoy too with hardy geraniums, poppies, daylilies, sweet peas, penstemons and perennial foxgloves to name but a few.  Not to mention the small display of vintage garden tools and ephemera that we have put together and hope visitors will enjoy.  The very hot temperatures of this week are now just starting to take their toll on many plants but with rain promised for tonight hopefully everything will look a lot fresher by the weekend.  Either that or the storms will have been violent and everything will be flat!

More details on garden opening at http://www.ngs.org.uk – Worcestershire – Astley Country Gardens.