Sunday 24 July 2011

My Desert Island Roses

It will already be clear that the stars of this garden are the roses, and I guess that is probably true of most gardens in this neck of the woods, for by and large both the climate and soil suits them very well. It is also true that I first fell in love with the rose over fifty years ago - early visits to Sissinghurst playing a major part in this - and in my time I have grown a great many different varieties. But for my desert island selection I am confining myself to roses that I am actually growing now, which straight away excludes quite a number that might have figured in my top ten. The absence of one in particular - Souvenir du Docteur Jamain -I much regret. It has a beautiful, dark red, velvety flower with a very good scent. It can be grown as a climber, but I have always had it as a bush. However the truth is that it has never done very well for me in France, the reason being that it is very difficult to place. Like so many of the deep red/purple roses it detests strong sunlight, but like almost all roses does not thrive in deep shade. Finding the halfway house is very difficult, and in this garden, which for the most part faces south, and has few mature trees to provide the right degree of protection from strong sun I have reluctantly decided not even to try.

It is probably for the same reason that no deep red/purple roses figure in my top ten. Since I am thinking of eventually producing a list of my ten least successful roses, which includes a number of this colour - I will not dwell on this subject here. One that I no longer grow, but in my experience resists well the sun is Charles de Mills. It is a beautiful rose, only once flowering, but covered in flowers when it does do so, and this over quite a long period. It is also healthy, this being in my view one of the most important criteria when chosing a rose. Some, perhaps many, varieties are a prey to blackspot, mildew and rust, and no amount of spraying will overcome the problem. Perhaps I should add the qualification that in different climates roses will react differently, but since I have mainly gardened in very similar climatic conditions I cannot speak from personal experience about this.

My top three go back a very long way with me. Fantin Latour is perhaps the first rose that I fell in love with, and in many ways it epitomizes for me the Rose, or perhaps one should say the Old-fashioned Rose; very full petalled, good scent, and a delicate pink that even David Austin has had difficulty in matching. It does not repeat which some people may find a disadvantage, but when one thinks that most shrubs and indeed trees only flower once this should not be held too much against it. The Queen of Denmark, sometime found under its german nomenclature, Königin von Dänemark, is another rose that does not repeat, but makes up for this by having the most exquisite flower of all, especially when the bud is half open and you can see the deeper pink of the centre. Its origins are disputed, but it certainly goes back to the 18th century and has some Alba blood in it. I was going to write that this explains why even when not in flower it makes an attractive bush, this being a feature of this group, but Quest-Ritson in the RHS rose encylopedia calls the leaves rather coarse, and it is true that their colour is not so glaucous as some others in the group.

My third choice, Mme Isaac Pereire, is a slight worry, this because of its colour being neither purple nor red but somewhere in between. Moreover it is not always the most healthy of roses. But the flowers themeselves are classic old-fashioned rose style fully petalled, while its outstanding feature is its perfume, perhaps the strongest of all roses, though some of the new David Austin's run it close. So not the perfect rose, but I have had it in every garden I have ever known, and would not be without it.


Hybrid Musks, almost all dating from between the two Great Wars, and many produced by one of those marvellous Vicars who found the time to interest themselves with matters flora and fauna, in this case by name, the Rev. Joseph Pemberton, are one of the great glories of any garden. The fact that currently I am growing ten different varieties will give you some idea of how much I admire them, and my ten do not include perhaps the most famous of the Hybrid Musks, Felicia, though I think that I must remedy this omission. But of the ten I do grow, which one to choose? Moonlight at dusk is very difficult to beat, while Buff Beauty is for me a much better bet than the more frequently planted in our region, Ghislaine de Feligonde, partly because I think that it holds its colour better in strong sun, though perhaps also because I have known it a very long time. So where do we go from here? In the end it has probably got to be Penelope, one of the most generous of all roses, here in Gascony with at least four serious flowerings. I would call it a biscuity white, though Beale says it has a bit of pink in it, as also does Quest-Ritson, so I guess that I am wrong, perhaps confused by the prominent lemon-yellow stamens. But anyway for a mass effect it is very hard to beat, and on a summer's evening there will be plenty of perfume.

My next choice, Trier, has a connection with the Hybrid Musks, being one of the parents of Moonlight, and indeed of others. The colour is not as brilliant as Moonlight's, but it compensates by being even more floriferous. But what puts it into my top ten is its vigour and general healthiness. I am aware that recently many rather similar roses have been produced, but if you want a very large - two metres by two metres? - shrub almost constantly in flower, you could hardly do better than this one.

One could say much the same of my next choice, Molineux. It is not a name to win everybody's hearts, indeed unless you are a Wolverhampton Wanderer's football fan, it could well put you off. And the colour, a rather brassy, almost florescent, yellow, will not be to everybody's liking, though as with a good many other roses the colour is variable, depending on the weather conditions. But it gets into my top ten because of the generousity of it flower and perfume, lighting up the South Terrace throughout the summer. A much better known rose of a rather similar colour is Graham Thomas, not a bad rose, though in my experience it becomes rather gaunt and leggy rather too quickly, and I have never known how to prune it. There is no such problem with Molineux. Just cut off what you do do not want and it will be perfectly happy.

We are of course in David Austin territory. His so-called English Roses have become so popular that anybody inclined to garden snobbery, which might I fear include myself, is inclined to be a bit sniffy about them. Too many, too many too alike, and perhaps lacking in form, this a criticism that can be made of so many roses especially in winter months when the rather rigid, and prickly sticks can be very disfiguring. But in the end you have got to give it to him. So many of his roses are out and out winners, and there is a view that they have indeed got better. And it cannot be said that they lack perfume, since strong perfume is one of their main features. For reasons too complicated to explain here we do not grow the pinks, and the only deep red we have, William Shakespeare 2000, has not as yet been a great success. But of the peachy, apricot shades we have a good number, and to choose one of them is difficult. Pat Austin has a most unusual and striking coppery colour, while Jude the Obscure is sometimes considered the best smeller of them all, though its paler colour does fade away almost to nothing in hot sunshine. In the end the winner has to be Crown Princess Margarita; a large spreading bush that can be grown as a small climber, strong colour and good scent, and repeating well just gives it the edge over its rivals.

By my counting that gets us to seven with three still to go, and perhaps a moment to have a pause, thus giving me more time to make a final selection. By my last count we grow 72 different variety of roses, though this does include climbers, which I am not including in this desert island choice. But the choices are difficult and many that I very much like will have to be excluded.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Melilotus officinalis

Rather a long gap between blogs, but the Silly Season is upon us, and I have been doing rather more cooking than gardening. Meanwhile the rain has continued to my great relief but to the despair of those who are staying here. Still currently I am quite pleased with the garden, which makes a change. All the dahlias and cannas are doing their stuff à la Christopher Lloyd's exotic garden. There are also gauras and grasses, the latter just beginning to make an impression. Readers of this blog will know that I am a late convert to the grass, and still do not think that they are the answer to everything, one of the problems being that for the first half of the year they do not contribute very much.

But what about Melilotus officinalis, otherwise called the Ribbed Melilot, and any help on the pronounciation of Melilot gratefully received. Slightly to my surprise it does appear in my plantfinder, now it has to be said seven years out of date, to my surprise because for most people it will be considered a weed. Here it has appeared spontaneously, which I hope is the correct term, but if not what I am saying is that it has appeared without any aid for me. On the other hand increasingly I have not been pulling it out, and I am now quite clear that it is a very useful garden plant. It is classified 'leguminosae' which means that it is related in some degree to the sweet pea family. I would not want to put it in the same class, and it is not a climber. Instead what you get is an annual with pea/clover/vetch like leaves with long,arching, stems covered in early summer in yellow flowers. It reminds me a little of Linaria dalmatica, a toadflax that I have grown in most of the gardens I have been associated with. The latter is more upright in growth, which is not necessarily in it favour, nor does it in my experience resist the secheresse as well, but both in my mind are useful plants. As regards the Melilot the difficulty is in recognizing it at an early stage, and I fear I have no easy answer. It is just a question of experience. This year for the first time a white flowering Melilot (M.albus) has appeared, in my view not as effective, but certainly I have not pulled it out.

Finally do not forget, in my mind the most attractive garden in the Gers, La Coursiana at La Romieu. I last visted it a fortnight ago, and even in what one might call 'between seasons', with the first flush of roses well over and the autumn flowers not yet in evidence, it was looking splendid, one feature being the marvellous display of hollyhocks, which made me think that I must plant many more here.