Everything in the garden really is rosy

JUNE is the month for roses and I’ve just added a new one to the garden.

‘For Your Eyes Only’ is a relatively new introduction and its like no other rose I know.

It has sunset-coloured single flowers that resemble common dog roses, except the centre of each flower is stained with a deep pink blotch. The effect is both natural yet very different and I’ve fallen hard for its charms.

Roses do well in my heavy clay soil and the pink roses that I already grow (unnamed because they were a mistake by the nursery, I had ordered ‘Lucy’, a vibrant orange floribunda, but that’s not what turned up) are both floriferous and resistant to blackspot.

Roses cope well with cold winters and even periods of drought.

Moist, humid conditions can make them prone to fungal diseases, so good air circulation around them is essential, and most like a good dose of sunshine, although there are a few that will tolerate shadier conditions.

In wet summers the flowers can suffer from ‘balling’. This is what happens when the outer petals of the buds become saturated and then dry out and shrink, effectively trapping the rest of the petals inside.

My roses have suffered from this several times and there really is no solution except to cut off the affected flowers and hope for a dry spell.

I don’t spray, preferring to rely on good cultivation methods to make my roses healthy and I ignore aphids, trusting the birds will clear up the problem for me.

At Carolside in the Borders, Rose Foyle has created the most romantic of gardens, one where her collection of pre-1900s Gallica roses perfume the air while they scramble up obelisks and hang in swags from ropes.

This is the sort of rose garden that most of us can only dream of, but something of the spirit of Carolside can be created on a smaller scale if you restrict your choice to patio climbers and some of the smaller ramblers.

I do like climbing patio roses, but I’m not so keen on groundcover varieties, which to me always appear to be stunted.

I much prefer my roses to have wayward tendrils and unruly habits, instead of those that are bred to be diminutive and well-behaved.

As I’ve said frequently here, my favourite rose is Souvenir du Docteur Jamain, an oldfashioned hybrid perpetual with dark maroon flowers and the richest scent of any rose I know.

Unfortunately, it’s a fussy grower, producing lanky growth that attracts every sort of pest and disease on the rose-grower’s hit list.

I’ve lost it several times now, but that doesn’t stop me from continuing to grow it.

Maybe this will be the summer when it finally has its moment of glory.