Gardening – Every rose…

Flowers have a special place in our hearts for their ability to evoke memories of loved ones; perhaps none more so than roses. I have to confess that I’ve never been much of a rose grower. Although they are gloriously beautiful, their finicky nature, prickly exterior and in most cases their demand to be planted in pride of place means that they don’t feature hugely in my garden.

In my parents garden though, a formal bed of roses and several climbing roses on the fences were cossetted and coddled to produce a mass of sweetly scented, show quality blooms each year.

One of my most abiding memories of roses though was the annual late winter horse poo collection; horse poo being one of the best fertilisers for roses. My brother and I were made to go down to the local horse paddocks with the wheel barrow and buckets to pick up as much poo as we could. Growing up in a fairly rough area, we’d fend off any abuse from other local kids (who found it mystifying why we would want to pick up horse poo at all) with a few well directed poo missiles!

When my Dad passed away, a potted carpet rose was chosen as his remembrance flower; it was passed on to me when my Mother went into a retirement home and this is now one of only three roses that I currently grow. And yes, I do remember Dad whenever I see this rose, but probably not in the way intended! What I do recall is his dark mutterings every winter when it came time to prune the roses; they were the bane of his life. As an engineer and definitely not a gardener, his favourite line was “I think we should just bulldoze all the b….y gardens and replace them with green coloured concrete”. Funny thing is, a few miles from where we lived, another non-gardener did exactly that to his whole section a few years before Dad passed away. Dad was delighted!

For the keen gardeners amongst us though, show quality roses are seen as the pinnacle of horticultural achievement, which is why I would encourage you to go and see them at their best at the Warkworth and Districts Rose and Flower Show to be staged in the Old Masonic Hall, Warkworth on Friday November 27. The organisers encourage any newbies to enter as well as the old hands, with sections for novices and sections for growers of other flowers.

If you do get hooked (or are already addicted) on growing roses, you will create abiding memories for you, your children and grandchildren. What better legacy to leave them?