Roses, roses & more roses

Thurs 21st Feb
Weather: Bitter arctic winds. - 2 to -1°C

For someone who was thought to be anti-roses, there are around 140 different types in Christopher Lloyd's garden. I have been pruning just some of them over the last two weeks.

I pruned another Rosa virginiana opposite one that I did last week in the Orchard Garden. Mid-way I transplanted some Ranunculus ficaria & Geum that wasn't wanted around that area but perfect for the orchard meadows. A rose that I kept hearing as 'Avritta', most likely a case of mishearing, but have not been able to find anything of or close to that name yet. I found this the most tricky rose, it flowered on old wood, a lot of the branches had flowered, it was tempting to take out substantial stems but then it didn't have that much material, so it was one where I had to really weigh the odds. In fact I got on with some others first before getting back to that one.

I also pruned a Rosa sericea which had barbaric albeit beautiful spikes that would try and lacerate me at any chance that it could, and a rambling Rosa called 'Edith's Treasure Trove', which is possibly not in commercial circulation, as someone bred it especially as a present for C. Lloyd. Both of which are also old wood flowerers. There was a lot of material on the rambler to take off, including flowered & dead shoots. Fergus liked how they were coming out of the roof even the tiles, so I left a lot of them arching over like that and trained only a selected few to the wall.

My hat in the clutches of Rosa sericea

Rosa 'Edith's Treasure Trove' behind the soil shed