Early Summer Parade

On a wall, growing amongst ivy I have another large white clematis, C. 'Snow Queen'. This is a purer white with striking maroon stamens. Both this clematis and the ivy are playing host to a pair of wren's, who have built a tiny nest and are very busy feeding youngsters.

Back in the mixed borders, the other white currently in flower is C. 'Gillian Blades'. This has very showy wavy edged sepals with golden stamens. Excellent seed heads in turn follow these.

The rose season has now begun in most gardens and mine is no exception. March was warm and sunny with little rain. April by contrast and most of May for that matter has been damp. The early warmth helped the roses into early growth and with little frost about, the first flowers appeared in early May.

If you grow many modern shrub roses of the floribunda or hybrid tea variety, not many flowers will be in evidence yet. That's why I suspect many more people are discovering the older shrub roses now. Roses like the china roses. These are really tailor-made for small gardens.

Flowering almost all summer long, china roses really do repay their keep in the garden. Unlike their modern cousins, they don't need such regular pruning either. Being much lighter in growth they are quite satisfied with a light trim each season to keep them performing well.

Two such are rosa chinensis 'Mutabilis' and rosa chinensis 'Old Blush China'. The former is very dainty in flower, with peach flowers later turning to crimson. Regular dead heading will keep this excellent rose in flower all summer long. 'Old Blush' has soft-pink flowers, which also appear very early and come and go most of the summer. All china roses are compact growers, very suitable for town and city gardens.

Moving up the scale a little with another early, but larger rose in 'Maigold'. This rose is really a cross with one of the species roses and a garden climbing rose. Suitable for a north wall, or fence, its strong and thorny dark green foliage is covered with golden yellow semi-double blooms. Although flowering usually only once, in early summer, prompt dead-heading can often produce a smaller second flush later in the summer.

Another climbing rose for a large wall, this time with a southern aspect is 'Madame Gregoire Staechelin', sometimes known as the 'Spanish Beauty'. This hybrid tea climber has very large tea blooms

Go To Page: 1 2 3

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic