It was to be found on sale at the La Coursiana open day, a lovely event with the garden itself looking at its best, and a good selection of plants on sale. A nursey woman whom I had not come across before was Gay Webster (fox-holmes@wanadoo.fr). She specializes in honeysuckles (loniceras), and seeing her selection made me think that I have not really taken them seriously enough. I have at this moment got a marvellous Lonicera etrustca in full flower. I have also got various extremely floriferous wild honeysuckle rather similar to 'Graham Thomas', that is to say palish yellow, and this I have managed to make cuttings of. One of the things that has put me off honeysuckles is my belief that they would like life a little wetter than I can normally provide; also shade, which in my garden is not altogether easy to find, or rather not that half shade, which so many plants prefer. I think that I am probably right in this, but I am planning to make a greater effort to accomodate them. L. etrustca, incidentally is happy in full sun, as indeed are one or two others, but you would need to consult Gay Webster for more information. And perhaps I should add that at this moment there seems to me to be a whole lot of new hybrids coming on to the market, notable for their smell and their flower power, so keep your eyes out for them.
Meanwhile almost every garden in Gascony will be smelling of roses, and in fact I cannot remember seeing a better display. Looking out of the window as I write this I have got Molineux full frontal so-to-speak, and nothing could be more more bling-bling, not even our President. And Moonlight behind it - first appearing nearly a hundred years ago and still one of the 'greats' - is hardly less showy. Quite different are the wild roses; the flowers are fleeting but unbeatably delicate, and again I have hardly ever seen them better. Here May sees the peak of the first flush of roses, rather than June as in England, though I suspect that this year we are a little bit later than usual. At this moment I have got three of my top ten in full flower: the Queen of Denmark, Fantin Latour and Complicata, interestingly all three only once flowering, which is not what the modern rose grower wants to provide us with. Looking at the Queen of Denmark last night I decided that it must go to the top. It has that centre of a deeper pink which then merges into the paler outer petals, in a way that I do not think that David Austin, for all his skill, has been able to match.. Nor in my view do his pinks of which there are many very good ones including my old favourite Mary Rose, quite live up to the magic of Fantin Latour, perhaps the quintessential 'rose ancienne'. Complicata is quite different, being single, the name presumably some sort of a joke. I am not sure why I rate it so high; it has no smell, is only once flowering, though does have good hips, but if one sees it in full fig it immediately suggests quality.
My one fear is that my 'top three' rather dates me. I first saw them at least forty years ago, and in a rather sacred place, which is to say Sissinghurst. I have not the slightest doubt that some sort of nostalgia creeps into my judgement. I do not apologize for this for nostalgia, together with some attempt to hold on to the future, which is to say that I hope that some things that I have planted will linger on well after I have gone, is a very important part of my gardening, but I am well aware that since the late fifties a lot of very good roses have been produced. In my next blog I will try and make an assessment of some tiny fraction of these, but perhaps even more so an assessment of roses, some very old but that are new to me, and I would guess not very well known to many others.
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