Grandma has vaguely mentioned what she thinks or knows what some of them are - most she can't remember, and I have only 4 labels for roses in my box of homeless labels! Hmmm...so I thought it might be worthwhile to start cataloguing the individual plants as they flower to see if I can work out what they are, or at least have a record of how they perform and perhaps formulate an idea of what group they might belong to, for future care, pruning etc.
So off we go...and starting with the best!
This rose to the east side of the stone shed is my absolute favourite of all the roses so far. Interestingly I thought it was an old fashioned style shrub rose due to its shape. Grandma was certain that it is a David Austin rose, and lo and behold, a label! This is Rosa 'Malvern Hills' which is actually a 'short rambler' and repeat flowering English Rose.
Next is the wee flowered pink double on the west side of the stone shed. This little sweetie has given a smattering of pretty flowers since early February, and is now covered. It does seem happier since we better secured it and improved the supports. It must be another repeat rambler? Perhaps another David Austin purchase...but no label and at the moment, no idea of identification.
There is a little, slightly darker, pink rambler type rose underneath the mountain of the beautiful clematis montana on the black legged tripod. No idea what this is.
Here we are now in the rose divider bed, starting at the far east end closest to the stone shed. This worrying specimen is one of the newest roses in the garden, and it suffered on planting from rabbit damage, whereupon grandma encased it in chicken wire. I'm not sure it has recovered from this early setback, and it is already looking fairly sad on the leaves with black spot and quite yellowy, but we will look at it again later when the flowers open fully.
Here is rose no 2 in the divider bed. The photos haven't managed to truly capture the rich browny apricot of these flowers - quite interesting and very rich, though the flowerheads are quite massive, I wonder if they will be able to hold their own weight under the weather. I am pretty convinced that this one correlates with the label I have for Bush Rose 'Hot Chocolate'.
Next in line is a climber which is yet to flower, so I will photo that on another occasion.
Alongside the climber, heading west, is this struggling pink one, which does have a less strident shade than the photo suggests! But I don't know what it could be...
Next to that is the Iceberg, which is lovely and a nice size and shape, though just this last week has started to show signs of black spot starting.
At the west end of the divider bed is this tall and reasonably ugly specimen, a typical hot pink with lots of black spot and terribly yellowed leaves. I don't really care what it is. Definitely for the chop!
Across to the shrub rose which is now against the new rabbit fence, and is apparently the oldest rose in the garden as it was here, grandma says, when they bought the house. It's quite large and sadly spotted with black spot but otherwise seems in rude health and has carried a smattering of these small creamy yellow flowers for a good few weeks now, which fade to almost ivory white as they age. I don't know if it will carry on like this carrying just a few flowers over a long period, or if it is building up for a full show. We will see. But she is a venerable old lady who is pretty and doesn't shout in your face, I like her.
Next we hop across to the border outside the vegetable bed, which used to only receive the morning sun, as it faced east with the fence behind it. Now of course the fence is gone and the sun (and wind!) can come through the rabbit fencing from the other side too. Less sheltered definitely, but more light and air.
There are two crimson red roses which look like a matched pair to me. Also one in a pot which I found abandoned by the side of the stone shed which does look very similar. Are they climbers? They might be as they were planted against the fence with trellis to support them. But they are quite ungainly and 'sticky' looking things, and too bright for me I think. Odd really, I love red, and I like red roses in a jug, but I'm not so keen on them in the garden for some reason.
Now we leap over to the circle bed, where we find grandma's personal favourite - the David Austin Gertrude Jekyll rose:
Again, the photo is failing completely to capture the actual colour of this rose - a luscious deep rose pink which is not at all lipsticky, and quite lovely. I was surprised as I thought Gertrude Jekyll was a shrub rose, and this one looks most definitely like a climber...then grandma confessed that she hadn't got around to pruning it last spring (hence the rather edwardian looking trussing! Miss Jekyll would have approved of her stays, I'm sure) and of course by the time I realised what had happened it was too late to do it this spring either or we would lose the flowers this year. However, on researching her on the david austin website, it seems to suggest that she is a medium shrub/short climber - which I suppose means that depending on where and how you grow her, her habit is a bit flexible. But I think in this location she ought to stay a shrub, but its a shame as she would have looked lovely against the house wall at the front, instead of the rather ungainly rigid thing that is there at the moment...
Coming round the circle to the east, so clockwise, after Gertrude we come across this one - which is again forming itself into a rather odd shape, and again a bit bright for my tastes here...
Next is the unknown Moss Rose, yet to flower so I can't even narrow it down by colour yet. It looks like it will be quite a small flowered one. Quite badly infested with greenfly (perhaps the recent spraying may have helped), I am hoping that the greenfly won't have affected the flowerbuds too much.
Next comes this rather weeny and pitiful (and red - again!) short patio type rose at the front...
...with the robust looking yellow rose towards the centre of the bed. This is quite handsome, but the only label for a yellow rose I have is for Patio Rose 'Happy Birthday' - not sure this could be it, as surely its far to tall and large flowered?
There is also a rose planted underneath the magnolia, apparently intended to cloth the other side of the wooden archway but which has instead decided to clamber up inside the magnolia. Another rambler (!) and with small red double blooms apparently. Not sure I'll take to it but we'll see what it looks like when it flowers.
On across to the entrance archway:
and here's the climber that grandma planted for our wedding here back in 2002! A mere baby at the time, I don't remember it flowering at the time, but it was bought to match the colour of the bridesmaids' dresses and it certainly is the right colour, at least. Though again it is rather a stiff habit and so I don't think it 'drapes' across the archway dripping in blooms like a climber should in this situation. Instead it reaches for the sky and that's where all the flowers are - 10 feet up where you can't see them! It also has terrible black spot already and i couldn't reach up to spray it as I tried and just ended up being raining on myself by anti-fungicide...
I have a label for Climbing Rose 'Galway Bay' - not sure if this is it (amazing for grandma to have kept a label that long!) or if this might be the name of the newish one that she planted against the house wall in the front courtyard to replace the one that struggled and died:
...here it is, the flowers are quite strong pink on opening but seem to fade to a more pleasant shade on full opening, thankfully. Still a shame she didn't plant the Gertrude here though...
So there we have it, so far! Roses every where you look...I feel my mission may be to cull the numbers a bit and focus on improving the shape and health of the remainder.
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