How does your garden grow?


We live in an old house.  Just as our home tells the stories of the people that have lived here before us, so too does our garden. 

When we moved into our house the garden was a bit of a mess.  The previous owners had obviously stopped caring for it, at least during the long process of selling.  When they left they decided to have a big bonfire on the small lawn, take up the patio and dig up some large plants that they wanted in the garden of their new home.

In the garden that remained there was also clearly still the mark of the owner previous to them.  A man called John, who owned two Rottweilers, who is at least a generation older than us, an avid gardener, with quite a traditional English tastes in gardening.  My neighbour, Jean, who is in her 70's, often bemoaned the ‘lovely’ garden John had left behind.  She also told me about the Rottweilers who are apparently buried under some rose bushes.  John loved roses, had a veggie patch at the back and liked privet and little brick walls.  I know the latter not from Jean but from what my garden has revealed over the years.  


Jean’s garden is how I imagine mine used to look.  Boarders along each side packed with perennial shrubs and every flower of every colour she can fit.  A lot of hard landscaping, including a few 'interesting' statues and perfectly clipped lawn.  

I have two red rose bushes; a rambling rose and stately hybrid tea rose (I think) that marks the Rottweilers' resting spot.  Two white rose bushes; a climber (above) that we have not quite persuaded to take flight over the pergola and another hybrid tea rose (I think) with a dusky pink centre that is highly perfumed(below).


When we first moved in I was not a massive fan of roses, mostly because I am a little intimidated by them.  There seemed to be a lot you have to do to look after them.  I didn’t want to remove them straight away, mostly because I was a little scared of finding the Rottweiler skeletons.  But they were very thorny and I had an unsteady toddler.  They were also rather leggy, covered in black spot, whitefly and with very few flowers the first year.  But, with a little pruning and feeding they have worked their magic on me.  This year the white ones have just started to bloom and they have already made me glad I kept them.

And what I can’t show you is the beautiful smell; cut roses do not have it; rose water and eau de cologne doesn't capture it either.  But a bit of rain, a warmish evening and you understand why they are the flower of love.  The smell is so wonderful.  

So, thank you John for our roses, aren't they beautiful?





I took all these pictures this week and other than a bit of edge blur, I've only done digital touching up on this last shot.  I only say this because the beauty in the pictures really is entirely down to the beautiful roses themselves and some lovely light in the garden on Tuesday evening - thanks for the tip Mammasaurus.

And for some more gorgeous gardens this post is part of Mammasaurus', How does your garden grow... linky.


Mammasaurus - How Does Your Garden Grow?

23 comments

  1. my word i can just smell those roses from here your photography is amazing

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    1. Thanks, it really was a lucky coincidence of good light and beautiful roses this year.

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  2. I'm glad you decided to keep the roses, they don't need a lot of looking after - just some pruning in the early spring and feeding. They're beautiful - I'm just waiting for my first roses to flower. Any day now!

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    1. Thanks, I realise they are not so hard to look after now but I think I'd listened to too much gardening 'advice' from my granny who seemed to think the growing of roses was a kind of dark art.

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  3. I'm sighing right now at these photos - so beautiful and I can just imagine that smell, you lucky,lucky thing.
    The little drops of water on those delicate petals...lovely just lovely.

    Thanks you for joining in again and for making me want to wake up and smell the roses!

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    1. And thank you for the photography tip, I'm really pleased with these pictures.

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  4. I've also been too intimidated to plant roses before. I decided to jump in and do it when some bushes from my mother in law's garden were going to be destroyed when she had the drive extended. I don't expect them to do much for a couple of years seeing as we had to transplant them right at the start of spring but hopefully they'll establish and we'll be rewarded with beautiful flowers like yours :)

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  5. We had to transplant the white climbing rose when we built the pergola. I thought we were going to kill it, but it was doing so badly amidst a stand of bamboo that had engulfed it that I figured it probably didn't matter anyway. It has taken to years to recover, but recover it has.

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  6. I love the sound of John and Jean's different but similar gardens. The way you describe Jean's is what I'm aiming for. I'm falling for Roses too. Yours are absolutely beautiful, I'm glad you stuck with them.

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    1. I was thinking about taking a sneaky shot of Jean's out the bedroom window. It is an absolute riot of colour, amazing how many plants she has got in there considering I think it is narrower than ours.

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  7. Beautiful roses, just amazing capture of the beauty of them. I so wish I could smell them

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    1. They are lovely aren't they? I am waiting for the red ones to flower next. They do smell delicious.

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  8. Stunning pictures! I have the same fear of roses and we bought out first last year - a white rambler. It did very badly last year and we had one flower but this year although it still has a bit of black spot and is littered with aphids it is groaning with the weight of huge blooms and the smell is divine. So maybe we are rose converts?

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    1. Thanks, after being neglected ours have taken a few years to get back into shape and we always have whit fly and aphids to be honest, I just can't be bothered to kill them all off they dont' seem to do that much damage.

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  9. Love roses, so delicate, soft petals. We only have one golden yellow one, the scent is amazing. Gorgeous photos x

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    1. Thanks, I'm a convert to roses, but an enthusiastic one.

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  10. Gorgeous photographs and how wonderful to have your neighbour able to tell you how the garden used to look. I feel similarly about roses but some of them do have really fantastic aromas and they can be so worth the effort involved. I think it's nice you have kept the roses that mark the rottweilers graves too x

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    1. Thanks the photography skills are all down to luck rather than judgement, but, I am really pleased with these pictures. And I've discovered that the roses aren't really all that difficult, prune twice a year, mulch with horse manure and the ashes from our woodburning stove and that's about it.

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  11. What a stunning roses! Loving it!

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  12. Oh they are stunning! I adore roses, and these look just lovely. I so want a climbing rose - I have always had a little picture in my mind of a climbing rose round our front door. I bet they smell lovely too. xx

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    1. Me too, and I want a magnolia in the front garden too.

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  13. Gorgeous roses and I wouldn't move them either with those rotties underneath. Actually that made me feel a little sad - big, soft dog fan here x

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