Hello yellow

The beautiful Canary Bird rose blooms before all the others, bringing a ray of sunshine to spring gardens

YOU might think roses are flowers of June and July and, in most cases, you’d be absolutely right. But there is one rose that opens before all the others that has a grace and charm all of its own – Canary Bird.

It is unusual in that rather than the sunny, open spot preferred by the majority of roses, it is happiest in dappled shade, for example, that provided by a canopy of trees such as silver birches.

Given a decent, well-drained soil that has been enriched with a reasonably generous helping of well-rotted garden compost or manure, it should thrive. Choose your Canary Bird in the nursery or garden centre right now and seek out one that looks youthful and vigorous. If your plant takes off – as it should if wellwatered before knocking it from its pot and teasing out the roots – it ought to settle in happily. And it will delight you each spring with its generous show of single pale yellow flowers, held among the most delicately ferny foliage. Only the Scotch briars beat this plant’s foliage for gentility – it really is an absolute treasure in the garden.

The attraction, in terms of cultivation, is this is a rose that needs very little in the way of pruning.

It will grow, in time, to a height and spread of around 8ft, but only those branches that die out, or that grow in an inconvenient place, need to be cut out in late winter and early spring. Otherwise you can leave this beauty alone.

You may occasionally discover that a branch has died out for no particular reason after it has come into leaf.

If it does, don’t waste your time worrying about it but snip it back into healthy growth and try to make sure the plant does not go short of moisture.

This is a rose that needs very little in the way of pruning

A mulch of well-rotted manure or chilled bark applied each spring after dusting the ground with rose fertiliser should be all the encouragement this beauty needs to cheer you up each April.

Canary Bird offers an island of brightness in spring

Canary Bird roses have delicate ferny foliage