Inspired !

I felt inspired to blip a picture of a rose in my garden after seeing all the other roses on here over the last couple of weeks. I love roses...how the colour can have traditional meanings, how they are graded for scent, shape, ability to climb, where they are suitable to plant, how long they bloom. I also find it interesting that you cannot plant roses where roses once grew as they will not thrive in the same soil.

Years ago I really got into finding out about them and fell under the spell of Harkness and David Austin. Some great advice from Harkness means I now have a wall of climbing red roses outside my house in a spot that doesn't get sunshine till about 1pm.

David Austin do the best roses IMO. This is a picture of one of my most unwell rose bushes. It has survived only just floating around the garden in a pot for a while during 2 big floods and then being forgotten about when I moved house. I planted it out last year and it is finally doing ok producing 3 flowers this year. I love the yellowy orange shades of the petals on this 'Pat Austin' rose...ok they don't look as amazing as they do on the official website but they'll do for me :-)