PRINCE CHARLES AND WINCESTER CATHEDRAL

If you're not that interested in roses, then this week's post will be a disappointment.  If roses are very much your thing, and they are definitely mine, then I have a feast for your eyes.

Rosa 'Chianti' got a lot of love last week.  Growing next to it is Rosa 'Prince Charles' which is also an excellent colour.  This is a Bourbon rose dating from the 1840s which means it fits in beautifully with the rather Victorian air I'm trying to cultivate in the Rose Garden.

I've trained it over this frame as its stems are rather floppy.

The 'best' white rose is probably Iceberg.  That one hasn't started flowering yet, but Rosa 'Winchester Cathedral' has.  It seems to be doing particularly well this year, and it has fond memories of the very first time we opened the garden, when there wasn't much to see except for a few foxgloves and poppies.  I bought this rose to put in a pot to give the visitors something to look at.  Which means it was the very first rose I bought for the garden.

I see David Austin roses have 'retired' this one so it's no longer available.  

From the very first rose, to my latest acquisition.  Despite my being adamant every year that I WILL NOT BUY ANY MORE ROSES BECAUSE IT TAKES AGES TO PRUNE THEM ALL.  My resolution is instantly forgotten when I'm in the garden centre and a rose catches my eye.

  

I know roses in this mauve colour are a little bit of an acquired taste and the name is a bit wince making (Blue for You) and it's a standard, which can seem a bit old fashioned; but I fell in love with it and brought it home to put in a nice big pot, which need something with a bit of wow to fill it.

Blue for You is quite a modern rose (2007), but the one below is another proper old fashioned one- Blush Noisette from 1817.  Would Josephine have grown this at Chateau de Malmaison?  I like to think so.

Perhaps she would have had a wooden obelisk to grow them up.  Sadly the thyme growing at the base has suffered badly from the wet weather, and I don't seem to have a ready supply of self seeders to replace them.  They have succumbed too.

Unfortunately this gardener cannot sit and admire the roses any longer, for there is much work to be done.  Gonalston Open Gardens is on the 23rd June and the clock is ticking.  I have a list of jobs which if I'm not very strict will only get longer.  'Those garage doors could do with painting'  Bailey Junior has pointed out this evening.

On today's list (if proof were needed that I am a real gardener and not just involved in the pretty bits) was weeding the shrubbery where it edges the driveway.  I knew it was looking a bit shabby, but I wasn't quite prepared for this...

Note also the heavy duty gloves which the prickles still managed to penetrate and the Winter coat (please could we have a little bit of sun?).

Also on that to do list was to fill up a few pots with some tender plants now we have reached the end of May. This will give them a few weeks to  settle in and fill out hopefully.


A shady trough by the back door gets some white busy lizzies and a few small ferns found around the garden, and is liberally laced with slug pellets for obvious reasons. 

That's all I have room for this week but thank you for stopping by.  Perhaps you'd like to check out the other Six on Saturday posts hosted by Garden Ruminations ?  Happy Gardening!