A Thorny Issue

As the dark nights draw in, there’s nothing I like better than snuggling down in front of a blazing fire with a pristine copy of a rose catalogue and a pen poised to tick my favourites. Rose catalogues are the ultimate eye candy for us gardeners – page upon page of velvet petalled beauties, many with exotic French names, all promising heady, voluptuous scents that will only be released in the heat of next summer.

Who could resist? Well, certainly not me. I have a garden the size of a postage stamp but a rose wish-list that would fill a football stadium. But now is the time to plant and plant for next year – so your first task must be to send off for a free rose catalogue (David Austin Roses or Peter Beales are good).

Someone in one of my gardening classes admitted that, recently, she had been overcome by the romantic description of a particular rose, only to be horrified when it grew, triffid-like, nearly swallowing the entire pocket-sized garden in three years. So always check the eventual height before you buy. In fact, I think many climbers are overrated. They grow too tall for our modest sized houses, fences and arches. I often go to houses to see a thicket of bare, thorny stems with a single rose bloom waving around way up in the stratosphere.

The solution is to plant small, well-behaved climbers. I know of no better rose for a pillar or pergola in sun than Open Arms. It’s almost the perfect rose, arching romantically with pretty disease-free leaves.