Can it be that long? A month or so short of two years? A lot’s changed in those two years (enough for a stream of posts yet to come). There have been false starts (more than those two years ago). But enough of the waffle and excuses. I’ve got to restart somewhere and somehow and this is as good an opportunity as any. So, like proverbial phoenix, I shall aim for the clouds. And in those clouds I find some of my inspiration from “She Who Shall Not Be Named“. I’ll leave you with that mystery for now. All will be revealed (subject to the normal rules of good taste) in due course. All would have been revealed today but a point was made that my post would be read so I decided, in the interests of personal safety, to defer the revealing until I’ve assembled, and donned, my collection of PPE. Anyhow……..

Resurgam!

And so back down to earth and something I remember, somehow, way back, known as “Six on Saturday”. I seem to recall participating in that something. So, with no apologies for a bit of repetition here and there, I present to you my six for today. Six roses. Well, there needs to be a theme in the meme, wot?

First we have Rosa (that’s posh for Rose) “Love and Wishes. It’s appearance serves two purposes.

Firstly, it’s the first of my six.

Secondly, it provides a nifty way to include a linkything. You see, it’s the only (surviving) plant in my garden that originally came from the pity bench at the local B&Q. The words “pity bench” have, no doubt, got your cogs cogitating as you think of one of the most frequent frequenters of pity benches in emporia the length and longth of the country. Yes, dear readers, I’m talking of our originator, host, proponent and general all round good guy, Mr Propagator. And if you click HERE that’s just back a bit where it says “HERE”) you’ll be magically whisked (in a new window/tab cos it makes things easier) over to his blog of the day where, if you study the comments, you’ll find links to other posts on this subject. Go on, have a click. You know you want to.

Be warned, though, that as the day progresses, more and more links will appear. You’ll need a lot of coffee or, perhaps, wine.

But back to the star of this segment of the show. This rose is the only one I have which produces hips after the flowers. Hip hip hooray for those little red balls which provide a snap of colour through the winter months.

 

And so, Semper Sursum, as they say. On with the show. Our second rose of the day is Wild Edric. Maybe I should have cropped out the sunny sky in the background but, hey, we all love a bit of sun so I’ll leave it there. Will that person in the rear stalls who’s saying “Lazy” please shut up?

The book says that this is a potential hedging rose, growing to around a metre. Well, all I can say is that whatever I do (I once tried the hedgetrimmer cut to about 30cm above ground – stuff Boris and his notion of reverting to imperial; I’m sticking with metric) it’s gonna grow to 2 metres, although the bottom 30cm is always bare. And it flowers its proverbial socks off. Continually for about six months of the year.

Moving on, yet again, we come to number 3. This was labelled “Prince William”. Not that one, the other one! It’s never flowered prolifically but She Who Shall Not Be Named (see above) suggested we should try a heavy hack approach. Ignore the photobombing foxglove and the rather droopy bloom (it’s what it does) and concentrate on the buds of promise up and over a bit. And wot’s not in the photo is the other tall shoot it’s sent off over that way which is also displaying loads of buds. Maybe SWSNBN is worth paying attention to. Especially if she’s waving her hori-hori menacingly in my direction.

Incidentally, as with all my photos, if you want a closer look, just click the pic.

Turning to the right (look, it’s my garden and I’ve turned to the right for the next photo, OK?) our eyes (OK, OK! My camera lens) alights on Madame A. Meilland. Sometimes described as the most famous rose of all time, someone threw a finger up to the taxonomists, who love complicated names, and renamed her simply “Peace”. And so she has become known. I hope she wasn’t an argumentative woman whose husband repeatedly yelled “Peace, woman!” at her.

Here, against a backdrop of euphorbia, we see one open bloom and one breaking bud. As that bud opens, it will lose its redness and become creamy yellow petals fringed with pink, as the open bloom, which gradually fade to plain yellow before the petals fall gently and silently to the ground. Yup, very peaceful. The books say this rose is disease resistant. All I can say is that it seems to be susceptible to every rose disease known to man, and then some. But the effort is worth it.

Number five is an “I wonder”. Many moons ago, I was given a rose labelled as “Peek-a-boo”. It produced prolifically, covered in smallish white flowers. But all good things and all that; it was clearly coming to the end of its road. So I tried the old stick-in-the-ground approach and, for the only time in my life, succeeded in producing a newbie. I had no intention of learning the techniques of grafting so I just let it grow on its own roots. Now, technically, I can’t guarantee that it’s “Peek-a-Boo” today. It’s a significantly bigger plant and the blooms are somewhat larger than the original. But, stuff all that stuff about rose sickness. It’s growing in the same place as the original, quite happily. It’s doing better this year after SWSNBN did a hack on it over the winter. Number 5 has come alive!

I’ve stored away numbers 7, 8 and 9 cos, well, this has to be a six, so they can wait in my Tommy Steele box for another day. (Who, you ask? Look him up.). Hence I conclude today’s proceedings with a bit of Gershwin (yada, look him up) and present the finale of Rhapsody in Blue. SWSNBN has this as well (I think I got it first) and her mum ought to have it now (if not, I wanna know where my donation was put!). No words necessary.

 

Right, that’s it. Join me next week as I jump back in time to set the scene for what is today. It was supposed to rain today but the sun’s out so I’m off to do some laundry and plant some plants. Catch y’all soon.

Note: Header image courtesy of Shvedov Xubun via Pexels.