David Austin visit.

Hi, I have planted a few roses for the first time and fingers crossed they are looking good, about to bloom I think. (I won't moan about the weather but it is blowing a gale and peeing down at the moment and the roses are getting a good battering !)
I am hoping to visit David Austin's place and was wondering if you could advise me when would be the best time to see the roses in bloom ?
gazania

 

We went a couple of years ago on 25th of June, http://s703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/Owdboggy/Rosescenes/
Depends on how the weather goes I suppose, but any time from the middle of this month would be good.

 

Hi Gazania

The height of the rose season is usually mid June. However, David Austin's roses are almost all repeat flowering, so they will go on producing blooms throughout the summer and into the autumn. You don't quite get the same abundance, however.

Old roses which bloom only once per season are mostly in flower in June. Before we had repeat flowering plants, the season was fairly brief.

 

Hi, nice slideshow Palustris. Yes, now the weather needs to be considered for sure. The soil looks quite bare in the photo's, is the soil mulched at all ?
A good point about the repeat flowering Clare. I will want to particularly have a look at roses suitable for growing over a pergola as that seems to be my next project. (Why I don't know ? especially when we live in hurricane alley !!!) I would fancy a rose that would hang rather than grow upwards towards the sun once it has grown on top of the pergola. (wishful thinking )
gazania

 

I'm afraid roses,while producing the most amazing flowers, aren't the most graceful of plants. Those we call 'climbers' are selected for their long, gangling canes and they do grow straight upwards unless we train them and bend them carefully to our will. Some roses have flowers which will droop downwards a little, however, making them ideal for pergolas because they look down at you. The climbing version of 'Ena Harkness' a deep crimson rose with a fabulous scent, is a bit like that. The flowers have slightly 'weak necks' - a disadvantage with bush roses, but a definite plus if the flowers are up high.

 

I honestly cannot remember what the soil looked like. Too busy dodging the crowds to get decent pictures. Certainly there were lots of rose climbing over things so you would have a good choice.
Just bear in mind that I detest Roses so I wandered about thinking fondly of weedkiller!

 

I have no room at all in my garden but I am in a sort of denial. Hans' post about his rose, Mme Isaac Pereire, had me reaching for my gardening book, which helpfully flags up this rose as 'possibly the most scented of all garden roses'. I'm sure I could find a place for it if I really, really tried.

 

Here's pics from my trip there last July.
http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/useralbums/david-austin-trip.85/view
It's a really lovely day out!

 

I am trying to grow David Austin's "Buff Beauty" up a trellis. It has no intention of complying. It sends out long wiry stems that ultimately burst into a boquet of flowers; they are quite petite and a gorgeous shade of beigey orange and they smell good too.
Best of all, they will happily gaze down at you from above.
Maybe a rose to consider?

 

Yes, I'm afraid the Reverend Pemberton didn't select his roses for neatness! I'm growing 'Buff Beauty' around a large obelisk. The idea was the wind the whippy stems around the structure to keep the rose neat. Needless to say, it's been a dismal failure. I'd need a support at least five times as big for it to do any good and the stems poing out on all sides like an untidy firework. But the flowers are lovely.

 

Clara, nearly every time I go out the front (where it is planted alongside) I feel I must stop what I was going to do and tend to it. A tuck there, a pull here and a quick tying in on that bit there...
Then I forget what I was going out the front door for

 

Nice pics Catztail, thanks.
I have a cat called 'sweetpea'. But believe me, she ain't no sweetpea
gazania

 

LOL!! I have 3 poops...... Felix, my Mommas boy, Monster, my Maine Coon, and Beans, my grumpy little girl that gets called Little Fatty most of the time.