Weeding the Web

A Bouquet from Prestige Flowers - review

A large, floppy picture hat, trug on one arm, and the bedewed sunniness of a summer morning. That's the image of a cutting garden for me. And due to remain only an image. Hah! I'm pleased to have colour in the beds, without stealing it for the indoors. 

Not to mention the hard work. If you want an idea of the complications arising from trying to produce cut flowers regularly, then you can catch up with Michelle's attempts for her mum at Vegplotting. Which is where florists come in.

The Vintage Peony bouquet from Prestige Flowers currently costs £25 down from £35, and comes with free plant food and chocolate truffles.

It's taken me a long time to appreciate the small pleasures of life. At university I was bemused to see fellow students (female, of course) going home with a small bunch of flowers. Fancy, I thought, spending money on something so unnecessary. And which would be dead in a few days.

I was wrong. Small moments equal small pleasures. And small pleasures accumulate into gracious living. So I was delighted when Prestige Flowers asked me to review a bouquet of their choice.

The flowers arrived in excellent condition. In transit, the bouquet is kept damp with plastic backed water-absorbent material and double-wrapped in plastic "tissue paper". They're in a box that's the right size, and tied to it, so they arrive with everything in place, dampness contained and securely held.  They come with a sachet of flower food and, these being the Vintage Peony bouquet, a small box of four truffles, which were very good. Quite a few of their bouquets offer the addition of free chocolates.

The white ribbon ties the bouquet to the side of the box.

The Vintage Peony colours took me by surprise. A muted combination of dusky pink Memory Lane roses and what I'm fairly sure are Sarah Bernhardt peonies, although the website describes them as Bernard (anyway, they're big, blowsy and pink) and pale lime-green carnations with sprays of Santini chrysanthemums (Zantini on the website), they're a more polite colour combination than I'd normally go for, but they did tone rather tastefully with the colour of the walls. 

The peonies came in a nice combination of tightly budded and fully open, which meant you weren't waiting for the whole bouquet to come into its own, and the roses and carnations still had opening power in them.

What I particularly liked was that the leaves had already been removed from the lower stalks, so you didn't have to spend time stripping them off. This is a thoughtful point. If you allow leaves to sit in the water, it can reduce the life of the blooms. For more tips, read my Top Tips to keep cut Flowers Fresh.

The bouquet also comes with a helpful leaflet explaining how to keep them looking good, and I admit I neglected the instruction about trimming the ends every two days - that should have been Sunday. They arrived on Friday morning and on Monday most of the roses were looking limp, along with one of the peonies. So I followed instructions for drooping roses and plunged their ends into boiling water for 30 seconds. It didn't work on this occasion and the roses were jettisoned. I personally wasn't too disappointed, purely because that dusky rose colour doesn't do a huge amount for me, but I don't think you'd be unreasonable to hope that they would last longer, cutting the ends or not. 

 

By the following Wednesday, five days after arrival, I had the above, and they're still going strong. There's no doubt that having fresh flowers somewhere in a room just lifts the feel of it. It promotes enjoyment of life, of the little things, of gracious living.  

Prestige Flowers provide all sorts of arrangements, from flowers for birthdays to boutonnieres and corsages.

You might also enjoy my post about NAFAS's Lonely Bouquet

For Your Eyes Only - Rosa Persica grows on me

Why would you give space to a plant that you dislike? Which is what I did last year when Thompson and Morgan sent me Rose of the Year, For Your Eyes Only.

For Your Eyes Only, Rose of the Year 2015, bred by Chris Warner

Well, there’s a clue there—one of the reasons was that it was free. It also filled a space. The third was that, given its accolade, I thought I really ought to be more open-minded and give it a go. I did, for a moment, offer it to Husband for his father’s garden, but he didn’t want it either.

It’s certainly a rose that elicits strong feeling. “Frankly dreadful” was the uncompromising opinion of one rose-seller I spoke to. I’m not sure if it was the colour he objected to but, visiting The Master’s House* recently in the Temple Inns of Court, I spotted it in the borders. “It’s a bit more salmon-coloured than I expected,” said head gardener Bob McMeekin. “I’m not sure it’ll stay.”

Well, I can tell you now, it’s staying in mine.

Thirty-two years in the breeding

For Your Eyes Only has quite a history. Plant breeding is a waiting game, but it’s a patient man who takes 32 years to reach a goal.

For Your Eyes Only, in abundance, at RHS Hampton Court 2014

The original Rosa Persica was discovered in Iran and for many years botanists queried whether it even was a rose. The answer turned out to be yes, only one that had adapted to growing in the desert. From the mid-70s Harkness Roses were offering Persica hybrids and for interesting detail on the story up to this point, see Breeding with Hulthemia Persica (Rosa Persica) by Jack Harkness**.  It was then they offered plant material to breeders around the world to try to further the research more quickly.

The potential colour markings were what excited breeders, and Chris Warner went on crusade. “The holy grail,” he told me at Hampton Court Flower Show in 2014, when the award was announced, “is a bright red blotch. Out of 1000 seedlings you might get two or three with a blotch.”

Chris gives the impression of a man with equanimity. It’s just as well as one can only guess at the long run of frustration, raised hopes and disappointments. Through the years, he bred hybrids that proved unhealthy, that didn’t produce good offspring. One proved promising. The only (and major) problem was that its blotch was the same colour as the flower. That was bred with others. And finally, thirty-two years after he started, he had a rose that, as he described with some pride, requires only 60% sun, mixes with all other plants, is insect friendly, disease resistant, and repeat flowering.

Phil Harkness presenting Chris Warner with the Rose of the Year crystal vase at Hampton Court Flower Show 2014.

For Your Eyes Only - my garden test

I planted it in spring 2015. It flowered a little last summer. This year it’s got going. And you know what? This year I’ve changed my mind.

Plenty of buds coming.

OK, close up, it’s not yet my favourite—I personally don’t think the flowers will ever be described as elegant—but the bush is a lovely shape, being compact and something of a dome; it’s a neat plant that’s just the right size for the front to middle of a border, its leaves are glossy, it looks healthy, the flowers have a gentle scent (though it’s hard to get down to them on the bush to find that out) and it is flowering its little heart out.

Even its colour is growing on me, though, because it’s so changeable – there is a salmon tinge, especially in aging flowers, but the buds begins as a clearer pink. Not only does the colour change with the opening of the flowers, but they seem to take on different pinks depending on the light. The buds themselves very prettily unfurl, in a sort of spiral, and there’s been a good mix of buds and flowers in all stages on the bush at all times.

The half-open buds are its most photogenic moment, by my reckoning.

This is definitely a big plus. It should repeat flower all summer and it’s making a valuable addition to the border.

All in all, I’m glad I persevered with it (and glad that Chris Warner persevered too) and wouldn’t be at all surprised if it becomes quite a pet over the years.

*The Master’s House garden will be open as part of the The Open Garden Squares Weekend, 18-19^th June.

** The article is worth looking at for Jack Harkness's observations on the clues the Rosa Persica gave as to how it gets fertilised.

GBBD: Camassia behind bars

With beds full of lungwort and forget-me-nots and, yes, garlic mustard and herb robert (because I like them, OK?), I'm going to concentrate on my newest addition. My Camassia. This, I found out from Emma Cooper, is tipped for great exposure at Chelsea. I bought mine a couple of days before I read that, or I might have put it back on the shelf. I don't like people to think I'm a slave to fashion. However, Chris Beardshaw, who's putting in around a thousand at Chelsea, says he can't imagine why they're not more widely used.

Let me explain...

I was in a buoyant, spring-like mood when we visited a newly discovered nursery. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting, and I treated myself to a carefully picked specimen that had four strong flower plumes ready to burst.

Pretty, huh?

Back home, where to put it? If you're like me, you tend to leave plants in their pots around the flower beds to see how they take you. I put it in a likely spot. I got quite fond of the position. I decided to plant it there.

Arrival at bed with fork. Hold on. Weren't there four flower stalks? Two remained. The others? Snapped off. One I spied below the strap-like leaves, lying on a bed of pulmonaria. The other has never been seen again.

What little varmint was responsible? Squirrels? Foxes?  I'd placed the pot at a point in the fence where they quite possibly jump over at night. Perhaps they jumped on it.  We moved the pot and Husband produced the netting. It looked like a naughty Camassia by the time we'd finished, but no fox was going to come close.

No foxy varmint is coming close to this

All serene. The blooms began to emerge, at the base of the flower plume, moving up. Then, What's that you say? What's that hanging down in the picture?  There, inside the cage, another snapped bloom!

A snap of a snap

From FOUR I I now have ONE. Did something small and furry return for another bite? Was it the wind? We had very strong gusts after the netting went round. Might the flowers have got caught? 

To be frank, I don't care. If Camassias are such martyrs to passing hazards, all I can say is they suit Chelsea down to the ground and are just far too delicate for me.

ON OFFER: Plant of the moment (slightly battered).

 This is part of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens. Pop over to see how other gardeners are doing round the world.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: rambling with roses

Roses have been superb this year, everywhere I've looked. Including my garden. Actually I'm moderately chuffed as I like to think the particularly good performance of the rose featured here is down to my pruning (OK, it's probably the weather, but I can dream...).

The question is, What is it? Well, feeling suitably chastised by Helene's query as to my type of tulip, I've done a lot of ferreting.

It was originally planted by my father (who loved roses and was always rooting cuttings in jars), which means it must have arrived in the garden in the 70s or early 80s. It's a rambler, fuchsia-pink (as you can see) with clusters of smallish-sized flowers, not repeat blooming, but flowering over several weeks (it's just gone over now, but we've had at least a month of flowers). Not really very scented.

Forearmed with the information that "It looks like a David Austin rose," (thank you, Fryer's), and armed with the meagre description above, I accosted one of the men on David Austin's stand at Hampton Court Flower Show last week.

He looked resigned (how often do people ask this sort of thing over the week, I wonder) and came up with three possibilities: Alexandre Girault, American Pillar (definitely not, that's a single), Excelsa.

I thought he must mean Super Excelsa (which shows the dangers of relying on Google) and I plumped for that as it doesn't have the strong fragrance listed for Alexandre Girault. BUT a play on the  find-yourself-a-rose feature on Peter Beales's site told me that Super Excelsa' s date of birth is 1986 (too late).

A play on Ashridge Nurseries' website brought up Crimson Showers, looking perfect, EXCEPT David Austin says this flowers to September. No good.

However, Crimson Showers was born from a seed of Excelsa in 1951 (a theme has developed). And - ta rah! - more ferreting on Peter Beales reveals that Excelsa burst into the world in 1909. Which just goes to show you should trust the experts and not get confused by Google.

It never really did particularly well in its original position, on a north-facing fence that grew progressively shadier over the years, so I took a cutting (rooted in a jar of water) about four years ago and planted the result in full sun, weaving it into a flimsy support. (The rose was what kept it upright during the high winds last winter.) 

It looks great against the neighbour's pink-tinged bush behind.

I think my father would be chuffed too.

GBBD is hosted by May Dreams Gardens. Pop over and see what other gardens are doing this July around the world.

 

Plant of the Centenary: this rose by any other name...would have lost something

With the RHS in the midst of choosing a shortlist for the Plant of the Centenary as part of their celebrations this year (more information over at Vegplotting), it's tempting to ponder what one's own choice might be. Some gardeners will find it impossible to choose just one, but not me. I know exactly what I'd choose. 

As a rose I don't think Peace can be bettered. It has a beautifully shaped flower and dark glossy leaves. The petals in graduated yellow are neither wishy-washy, nor brassy, while the warm flush of pink of the petals' tips defines their edges.  Of course, being now a fairly venerable yellow rose, it does have its problems with blackspot, but you can't have everything.

What really makes me choose it, though, is its story. I'm not being exactly radical. Many others have been moved by its tremendous tale of survival and symbolism, which is told in greater depth and with varying detail by the Bexrose Bulletin and the Barenden-Sarasota Rose Society (or on this YouTube video Love at First Sight: America's Affair with the Rose).

In essence, with the German invasion of France in 1940, the rose-breeding fields of Francis Meilland were destroyed to make way for vegetables. Hoping to save the rose that had already won admiration from international rose-growers but was still only known as 3-35-40, he sent budwood to Germany and Italy and, smuggled out in a diplomatic bag, to Robert Pyle in America.

Pyle managed to propagate it and 3-35-40 was tested in different conditions across America, showing its strength everywhere from hot, dry Texas to cold, damp Michigan.  To cut a long story short, it was a triumph. Awarded Rose of the Year for 1946 by the All-America Rose Selections, it had been christened just as war was ending in Europe.

Could it possibly have been named anything else? I reckon that just about any new rose at that time might have been named Peace, but no other would have had its story. Millions of Peace roses were planted around the world (we inherited one with our garden) and even now, when I look at ours, I can imagine the blessed relief of the post-war years and a shared hope for the future as gardeners everywhere found it a place in the garden.

The first half of the twentieth century was riddled with conflict: the World Wars tend to overshadow all else, but it saw Italy's brutal bombing of Abyssinia; the butchery of the Spanish Civil War; Japan's advance into China and the ensuing Sino-Japanese War.

Against the background of these years, Robert Pyle declared:

We would use the word " Peace" to preserve the knowledge that we have gained the hard way that peace is increasingly essential to all mankind, to be treasured with greater wisdom, watchfulness, and foresight than the human race had so far been able to maintain for any great length of time.

We believe that the rose is destined to live on as a classic in our grandchildren's gardens and for generations to come.

Towards that end, with our hopes for the future, we dedicate this lovely new rose to : Peace.

The years since 1945 have proved little better, conflict-wise, but as Robert Pyle foretold, the Peace rose has lived on. Happily, Peace's success meant that the Meilland business recovered from its wartime destruction and is, to this day, also going strong.  The sentiments that accompanied its naming are just as valid today; its uplifting story shows that beauty can survive the onslaught of ugliness, and it's hard to find a lovelier rose (I personally don't think there is one).

This is, for me, the Plant of the Centenary.

Afterthought: Dates are a bit muddled and it seems just too good to be true that rose events should have coincided with momentous stages of the war. Bexrose says it was named on the same day that Berlin fell; Barenden-Sarasota that it was awarded Rose of the Year on the day Japan surrendered.  I've decided to find out more by getting For Love of a Rose: Story of the Creation of the Famous Peace Rose, which has some glowing reviews on Amazon. I'll let you know if the dates are correct.

Visit RosesUK for a list of suppliers of the Peace Rose.

Queen Elizabeth, a royal rose

Congratulations, Ma'am, and thank you.

I couldn't let this weekend to by without celebrating the Jubilee. It's quite something. Go on, admit it. I bet that even if you're usually quite curmudgeonly about the royal family, you're quietly moved by the whole event. After all, having the same Head of State for 60 years is quite something for a country. 

Having a queen at all is something to treasure.  We enjoy a continuity of history that doesn't happen when a president gets elected every four years and we have an apolitical head of state - one who represents us to the world, unsullied by whatever political hue the UK bears at the time.

So, in celebration, I've investigated roses. A couple were launched at Chelsea this year just for the occasion: Peter Beales came out with Queen's Jubilee Rose (a fully double-flowered shrub rose, white with pink flush) which is nice, but I'm not keen on double flowers; David Austin offered Royal Jubilee (large, deep pink flowers, petals curving inwards) whichI think is, frankly, quite horrible.

Will standard roses become standard again?

I predict a new trend. And I sense a growing interest. For some time I’ve been wondering what happened to standard roses.

Watching The Long Arm recently — the last film from Ealing Studios, a police procedural starring Jack Hawkins — I felt a jolt of recognition as he turned into his front garden and passed standard roses guarding the path. The film was released in 1956 and these roses were a “standard” for front gardens for many years. Indeed, I can just remember them from my childhood.

Why did they fall out of favour? Well, all things do, if only because a new generation of gardeners and designers have to justify their existence by eschewing the established and bringing in the new. And while roses of any sort are poorly suited to the ultra-low maintenance deserts that make up so many front gardens, these also require staking. But I'm not alone in thinking they deserve more attention.

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, glowing cherry-red...

Russell Crowe will pound across cinema screens from tomorrow in the guise of Robin Hood, and with a whole new backstory (and main story) unrecognisable to those of us who have grown up with the legend (and, indeed, the unsurpassable Errol Flynn version).

Having seen a trailer, which prominently reminds us that the director Ridley Scott was also responsible for Gladiator, I’d say we’re in for more of the same — lots of murky forest, wide CGI vistas and a strange predilection for making every scene dreary with a blue or brown filter. Still, I could be wrong.

So, in celebration of (OK, and protest at) this latest reincarnation of one of our most English heroes, I thought I’d ferret out a connection with that most English flower, the rose.