A surprising floral display
Almost winter. And I have just picked a bouquet of roses for the house.
Cause and effect. The jet stream slips and we get extraordinary rainfall and Gertrude Jekyll roses for the house five months after the first flowering.
They are quite a sight in front of a blazing fire. A clash of seasons.
A gorgeous scent of spring.
I did have a pla
n to take rose cuttings this week, and I still carried out the task; but I had to prune carefully, making sure not to cut any branches which still have buds.
Who knows? I might get these roses flowering in December.
I dug a trench to the far left of the furthest hedge on the property (behind the potting shed) and trimmed each rose branch to about a foot in length.
These hardwood cuttings are my favourite type of propagation; just stick them in the ground and forget where you planted them. I have managed to get one rose from this method. Which I am giving away to Yvonne when the leaves finally drop and the plant is dormant enough to dig up.
The odds are not brilliant, as I have put in about twenty cuttings here. But it’s not inconvenient, as I am pruning the roses anyway.
I usually prune hard in spring, but who knows what that will happen next year? And boy the soil is soft from all the rain. I’d almost plant myself in here as well it looks so inviting.