Plant of the month
What other plant could there be in June than roses. Despite changing
fashions they remain forever popular.
The mistake often made is that all you have to do is stick a rose
bush in the ground and it will thrive. They need well prepared soil,
plenty of organic material, and for the bedding hybrid tea and floribunda
roses, careful pruning, lightly in the autumn and a bit harder in April.
All roses are quite greedy feeders so manure or compost mulches in
the late autumn and spring are essential, and so is control of insect and
fungal pests.
If rose bushes die or become old and unproductive do not simply dig
them up and replace them with new plants. The new plants will almost
certainly die from replant disease. The only way they can go in the same
place is by digging out the old soil and replacing it with fresh earth from
another part of the garden.
While they only flower once a year, with sometimes a late flush of a
few blooms, the wild, species roses, and the old-fashioned ones are very
beautiful. Many of the species produce brilliantly coloured hips in the
autumn.
A great and superb modern breakthrough is the David Austin English
roses which are hybrids between the best of the old-fashioned varieties
with modern repeat-flowering roses. Many of them are beautifully scented
and flower over a long period.
