Rambling rose maintenance

I was about to schedule this post for Friday. And then realized that today was blog day and I seem to have lost 24 hours.

I blame the glorious garden weather.

This was the fun job yesterday. Taming the rambling rose.

I’m going to try my best to show you where this garden visitor lives.  I didn’t plant it. And Iné – a resident of this farm of 24 years doesn’t recall putting it in.

Well you wouldn’t in the location it now lives. It is at the top of the quince bank right beside the new guest house garden.  Parts of the plant have travelled down the steep terrace and have rooted on the east garden.

I could try and dig it up and move it. But I don’t have the thick gauntlets necessary for the task. It’s a spiky beast.

But I have worked out that I can redirect the long snaking tendrils into a better position.

Here is a reminder why I set off on this mad adventure.

Too gorgeous. But I wasn’t going to just drag the long rose tendrils towards the guest house and hope for the best.

First I needed to weed the area underneath. And this week, after the rain, it was a treat.  Off came the few inches of grass and bramble and I had a nice clear bank.

Normally I don’t use this weedproof fabric as it’s so water resistant. And useless.

But for here I simply wanted a barrier where little would grow so I could let the rose do its thing and not make me try and strim the steep slope underneath.

I had fun making a little wall in front. Just a single layer as it really is the sort of thing a structural engineer ought to attack.

I think I might plant up this area with a prostrate rosemary that will hopefully take well and flow over this super steep wall. (It’s way too tenuous to weed more than I have done. The whole wall might fall down.)

And of course I had to cover the black eyesore of a fabric. I ought to have tucked it out of the shot above. But warts and all, warts and all….

A quikc twinkle down to the lower terraces and rake up the grass strimmings and job done.

Well, it needs to be a whole lot tidier than this. But it’s a jolly good start.

And I ambled back indoors to hunt out my To Do This Summer list and gave the job a big fat red tick.