What have i done!!

I rang David Austin to get their handbook of roses. I was already sure i wanted a Gertrude Jekyll climber to go around and over my patio doors. The book arrived this morning. Now im faced with a choice of hundreds of roses. Is anything ever simple?

 

No, sorry.

 

I have Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and once I work out how to train it around the front door, I'm sure it will look stunning as the actual roses are beautiful and plentiful!

 

Mrtibbs you've got the rose bug already, there's no cure now!

 

Excellent choice I bought a Gertrude Jekyll last year and I've never seen so many beautiful Roses on one plant before - plus she smells divine.

 

Yup - Here's my 0.02p worth

Unless you want a variety specific to David Austin then save your money and buy your roses bare-root in the Autumn from a specialist rose nursery.

My local specialist Rose Nursery, (Cants, lots of other good ones around the country) charge £13.25 for Gertrude Jekyll ... Mr Austin wants £15.59 ...

I think roses perform better if planted bare root in the Autumn, rather than from container grown stock. (Of course if you need it now, to fill a gap etc., then that's different)

Is Gertrude Jekyll going to manage that? I thought it was a shrub rose - thus only going to do about 2M / 7' perhaps?

 

Good point Woo. My local rose nursery is on the same type of heavy soil as me - would you say that is an advantage for me to be buying from them - because the plants will be replanted into a similar type of soil?

 

We bought two Gertrude Jekyll roses in containers from the Garden Centre in Minehead two or three years ago but can't remember how much each one was but it was cheaper that what David Austin was charging at his nursery.We gave one to my sister as a Thankyou gift for putting us up and kept the other one which we now have climbing up our South Facing garage wall.

This year it is full of beautiful scented flowers and is already starting to grow upwards as it is a climbing rose,so Mr Kandy needs to put in more wires and tie it in and also to tie in some of the growth so it goes sideways.

By visiting his nursery the other year we were able to walk round his rose display area and sniff lots of the roses and to get photos of them in full bloom.At least that way we could decide which ones we liked and which ones to miss out.We also got one of the catalogues while we were there.

Alas,we only have a tiny garden and because we are trying to fill it full of bee saving cottage plants have had to limit the amount of roses we grow,plus Mr Kandy isn't a great fan of roses as he finds the upkeep of them time consuming

Hope you manage to get a nice rose Mr Tibbs as with Gerty you won't go wrong

 

That's a good point. When we planted our roses we went to the local rose grower, who (as is common) has a field of rows of roses on show, and we compared colours and sniffed them ... and even bought a couple of blooms home with us to review colours back at home. They've been a huge success - loved by us and much admired by visitors

 

people speak very highly of Mr Austin's roses of course ... so the quality must be good ... but the marketing, right down to the bespoke green pots, has to be recouped in the price. Take my hat off to them for their success and popularity though and they do have a good breeding program.

 

Unfortunately we don't have any rose nurseries on the island and the couple of garden centres that sell a few don't look after them. If David Austin could see the state of his roses being sold here he would weep and the same high prices are being charged for them too.