There's no better pick-me-up like adding to my family of garden plants. Today I have bought a new rose, an Award Winner called Champagne Moment. It's a bush rose which, arguably, only grows 24" x 24", is very fragrant and a floribunda so it is a prolific flowerer. I just had to have it. For a couple of years now my attempt at growing vegetables has been thwarted by dismal weather and so I am turning to herbaceous perennials, annual flowers, and roses instead to fill up my borders. Vegetables, if I bother, will be confined mostly to tubs and pots.
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Champagne Moment
Hardly surprising this was the rose of the year winner in 2006. |
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| Champagne Moment |
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| Champagne Moment in full bloom |
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| Champagne Moment new leaf - macro photography |
Roses hardly ever let me down except for the common nuisances such as aphids, mildew, blackspot and rust which are all easily remedied with a chemical spray. One particularly taxing problem I have had and got me mystified is with a David Austin rose called 'William Morris'. I had given it a chance for 2 years and decided that this year, if it did not bloom well, I was going to dig it up and get rid of it which would have been a shame as it is covering quite a good portion of my garden fence. Now I have
discovered the solution and so here he is: William Morris in all his glory. Fully opened and beautiful.
One thing I discovered though about flowers like William Morris which concerns me is that bees cannot easily access the pollen on double flowers so I am glad that a number of my roses are not double and that I have plenty of other flowers in my garden to keep the
bees happy. I get a lot of bees, in particular Bumblebees.
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