June 2023 – GWENNIESGARDENWORLD

My roses were a few weeks later in bloom than other years cos of the cold and wet Spring we had, but now they are in full bloom and my garden smells of roses at the moment.

Rambling rose, rosa Guirlande d’Amour, I have it in my garden for almost 25 years and each year it blooms like this, we do not feed it nor do we water it. What you see now is the first bloom, after we cut all the faded flowers, it starts blooming again but not with as many flowers as you can see here, but it blooms till the first heavy frost. This rambler doesn’t grow as tall as the other ramblers, and it’s thorns are not as sharp as those of the other ones.

Rambler rose Francis E.Lester, a lovely rose, we cut it back last Winter to a few inches and it has grown again to 5 or 6 meters now , you can see all the buds, so it blooms for a long time, in Autumn it gets lovely orange rose hips for the birds. You can’t see it here but the thorns on the stems are horribly sharp, you really need very strong gloves to handle it.

Rosa Francis E. Lester.

This is rambler rose Seagull, a close relative of the rose Francis E. Lester, this one has horrible thorns as well. Ramblers use their thorns to climb in trees and bushes, normal climbing roses need to be tied to a bow or something else, they have long flabby branches who need a bit of help to climb. This one gets orange rose hips too, their thorns are equally sharp as the one’s from Francis.

Mind you, if you don’t cut ramblers back each year they’ll grow 10 to 20 meters high in a tree or over bushes.

The birds love climbing roses as they use them to hide from predators and to nest in them and in Winter they provide food. The roses are buzzing with all sorts of bees at the moment.

How many roses do you have in the garden ?

Have a great week and enjoy your garden.

Elder or sambucus nigra is a fantastic big bush that provides flowers in Spring and edible berries later on. The flowers and berries only grow on wood that is 2 years old. You can cut the bush really short if you like but then you have no flowers and berries for that year. But it regrows very fast. You can use the flowers and the berries in jam , syrup , cakes, smoothies and all sorts of food, it helps to cure coughs and kills virusses. The birds and the bee’s love it too. So what is not to like ?

The flowers, aren’t they beautiful ?!!

Close up of a flower.

And the buds.

I can really recommend this bush for the garden, at least when your garden is big enough as it grows to 4 meters by 4 meters but by trimming every second year you can keep it lower and slimmer.

Have a great week !