Home > Archives > December 22nd Xmas Issue > Gardening with Gael - Celebrate Christmas with red roses
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Gardening with Gael - Celebrate Christmas with red rosesThis is my seventh Christmas gardening column. I am constant-ly amazed at how much new material relating to gardens happens every fortnight. There is no end to new plants and information. This week my fellow gardener Lyn Parker and I visited one another’s gardens. Lyn’s is ten years older than mine and she has an inspirational variety of shrubs, trees, flowers and roses. It was a rose in Lyn’s garden that gave me my idea for this column In the last article I wrote about the seven roses that have given me a great deal of pleasure. This week I am going to choose some red roses. What could be a better Christmas table centre-piece than a beautiful bowl of freshly picked red roses? My mother’s favourite red rose was Fragrant Cloud. The very fragrant hybrid tea Fragrant Cloud has been around for a long time, proving it’s worth as a strong healthy rose. My mother-in-law’s favourite was the climber Dublin Bay. Another healthy dark red rose with a good perfume, Dublin Bay flowers al-most continuously. We have yet to plant one but it is on the list for next year. The red rose that captured my attention in Lyn’s garden was LD Braithwaite. She assures me it can be grown from cuttings but I have already requested one from Ces at the market. One of the David Aus-tin roses, it has been recommended as one of the best all-round roses you can grow. The large brightly coloured crimson blooms repeat continuously and produce a strong old rose scent. When picked it lasts longer than most roses. This one will be high on the list for next year. I gave friends of mine in Wellington Darcey Bussell, another David Austin rose, this one named for the ballerina. This is a hardy medium-sized bush with double crimson flowers that re-peat. So far it has proved hardy and disease resistant. Two weeks ago Ces had bunches of a floriferous floribunda rose called Satchmo. I think this rose has the same properties as my favourite wildcat. A medium sized bush rose, Satchmo becomes covered in clusters of unfading bright scarlet flowers. In spite of the lateness of the season I took one home and planted it in lots of peat moss. The rain this week will have given it the start it needs. I can’t wait to see the first blooms. Another Ces had at the market was a deep velvety red climber called Birthday Present. It features on the cover of Trevor Griffiths’ The Best of Modern Roses. Although not a continuous repeat bloomer like the others this rose has one main flowering period followed by a second late one. Then there is the rose we dug from my Moth-er’s garden when she died. Ces has propagated it for my sisters and myself and he also sells it at the market. We are still to identify it. I refer to it as my Mother’s rose, Ces refers to it as Your Mother’s rose and others refer to it as Gael’s Mother’s rose. Ces says the name has been on the tip of his tongue for some time. The photo is of all the red roses Ces grows displayed in a bucket. Imagine how they would look in a vase on the Christmas table. |