Looking great @Mr. Vine Eye, my crab apple seems to have recovered too, it’s growing new shoots. I was admiring your clem Etoile Violette earlier too, wish I could’ve got that instead of Warsawska Nike to climb up my wisteria. WN. Is lovely but I think it needs something bigger and more vigorous there to compete!
Well we got a terrific storm last night right overhead, impressive thunder and lightening plus another downpour. The grass is visibly greening this morning as I watch. Roses are drooping but already getting a little colour back, including Golden Celebration:
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Can somebody just send us some sun? It is raining every day since weeks. We had maybe 2 sunny days in June. Totally fed up with it. Everything is lush green . So it is with some envy that I look at those sunny pictures with roses.
I did some tying in of the ramblers and climbers the past days. Gave some wire instructions to the OH for the coming month to give me some more horizontal flexibility on the large wall we want to cover.
A lovely picture of lady marmelade ,it is still on my wishlist for the front border but already sold out for the bareroot season at TCL.
@Marlorena , how is your Florence Ducher doing ? Still a BS mess? Ducher has opened the pre ordering but I remember your latest comments on this climber so not sure to press the purchase button online.
@Imprevu ... it did not survive my July cull, so it's gone.. it's a pity as I don't recall it being that bad during the first year I had it, but roses that defoliate totally after first flush, don't last long around here.. might be different for you though in Belgium..
@Victoria Sponge Golden Celebration varies a lot here in form and colour so that’s probably not typical of what you would get in the UK. Early season it’s more a classic Austin cup shape, large fragrant blooms. It has a terrible habit for me tho, long, sprawling canes that haven’t improved much by sticking an obelisk over it.
Hearing @Omori’s experience of it would be a better bet and also has it growing up an obelisk with more success than me, I think - I hope I recall that correctly Omori, sorry if I’m thinking of someone else!
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Desdemona is making lots of small frilly blooms at the moment, very cute 😊
Mini Emily Bronte bloom too
New growth from the laterals I cut back on Malvern Hills
Rosa Rugosa finally potted on, they probably thought they’d never make it out of those 7cm pots.
Cutting back the aquilegia has revealed some gaps, so I’ve got some of my April sown foxgloves planted ready for next year. Jack Frost too, the surviving fragment from the plant I thought I’d lost.
The first time this crocosmia has flowered, last two years it just went brown.
I just can’t kill these gladioli. I’ve dug them up, yanked them out, but they just keep growing!
Some wildlife today - the frog seems to like the area where all this years potted/growing on plants are sitting, must be a lot of slugs! Second one I’ve found in there, or maybe it never left!
@JessicaS - that’s a really kind thing to say thank you! I think it’s unfortunate that because of all the pressure on accountability and data, more and more the children are becoming numbers. It’s all rubbish and there are so many important skills and experiences for children to learn and take part in which simply can’t be measured.
A lot of those things end up being forgotten about. I’m lucky that my role in school is less about the assessment side and more just the teaching and time spent with the children. That’s why I had the time to spend doing live check-ins etc. with them in that last week. I did it voluntarily on days when I’m not actually contracted to work.
Schools are full of great people that try their best to juggle the 100 odd roles that a teacher is expected to perform while also being accountable for the ‘raw data’. It can be an absolute nightmare of a job but rewarding too. I couldn’t do full time teaching again, it was completely all consuming and I didn’t have any time for myself at all. Let alone enough time to do the fun stuff I like to do with school.
No chance of looking after a garden and allotment properly if I was!
Lots of my roses (incl one Crimson Glory) blew off my big arch but - hurrah - nothing snapped. With all the rain, they are now three quarters of the way across the arch. I'm hoping maybe they might reach all the way by the end of the season. I have more growing well up the other side.
My inherited cream (maybe Creme De La Creme) has never done so well as this year. It's probably all the rain. It's quite little and so I'll stop worrying about trying to train it out.
I really hope to get another good flush from the various reds. I had one flush in June from Etoile, Guinee and CG and nothing since. They have been busy putting on cane growth (which is fine with me). Barkarole went over so fast in the baking weather.
I see that saw fly have been gnawing all the canes. I didn't realise they could do so much damage. Gits. Honestly, who would grow roses?
Posts
Well we got a terrific storm last night right overhead, impressive thunder and lightening plus another downpour. The grass is visibly greening this morning as I watch. Roses are drooping but already getting a little colour back, including Golden Celebration:
I have it on my reserve list for next to my pond in case I can't get Smiling Sun from Lens this year but it looks like a sweet rose anyway.
I did some tying in of the ramblers and climbers the past days. Gave some wire instructions to the OH for the coming month to give me some more horizontal flexibility on the large wall we want to cover.
@Marlorena , how is your Florence Ducher doing ? Still a BS mess? Ducher has opened the pre ordering but I remember your latest comments on this climber so not sure to press the purchase button online.
... it did not survive my July cull, so it's gone.. it's a pity as I don't recall it being that bad during the first year I had it, but roses that defoliate totally after first flush, don't last long around here.. might be different for you though in Belgium..
I've replaced with 'Westerland'...
Hearing @Omori’s experience of it would be a better bet and also has it growing up an obelisk with more success than me, I think - I hope I recall that correctly Omori, sorry if I’m thinking of someone else!
Thanks @Nollie
A lot of those things end up being forgotten about. I’m lucky that my role in school is less about the assessment side and more just the teaching and time spent with the children. That’s why I had the time to spend doing live check-ins etc. with them in that last week. I did it voluntarily on days when I’m not actually contracted to work.
Schools are full of great people that try their best to juggle the 100 odd roles that a teacher is expected to perform while also being accountable for the ‘raw data’. It can be an absolute nightmare of a job but rewarding too. I couldn’t do full time teaching again, it was completely all consuming and I didn’t have any time for myself at all. Let alone enough time to do the fun stuff I like to do with school.