sweasel.com

Oh my lord! I’d re-inforce the garage before I cut that back.
Did you plant it?

Hobbit cottage! I wants it!

We had a trumpet vine that would have eventually looked like that, but we moved about twenty years too soon. If the new owners kept it, they would have humming birds to go with it.

Uncle B did, Janna. It really isn’t all that old.

Don’t know if you’ve been around this blog long enough to know, durnedyankee, but our house is very old. Not sure entirely how old, but somewhere around 400 years.

No humming birds in the UK 🙁

Ooh David Austin roses are my favorite. I bought 10 last year (4 varieties) and they make me so happy I can’t look at them without trying to figure out where I could squeeze in a dozen or two more of them.

Pruning lovely things is very hard to do, but I finally mustered the nerve this spring to cut back *severely* one of my oldest floribundas that blooms like crazy but got so leggy it was only nice from five feet and up. Now I wish I’d done it sooner because it flowered (round 3 just started) as much as before – but on a boatload of fresh new canes. I’m much less concerned about “over” pruning now, and think I’ll take more off the other roses next spring than I’ve generally done.

Dont be fooled. In that garage under all those beautiful roses, stoaty sharpens and stores her machetes.

I recall reading you’d found hex marks in the beam work to keep the hexens from your kessel.

More house envy from me!

Oh heavens! It’s magnificent. But—but—if you carefully cut it back this fall, you could build an arbor upon which to redirect the canes, and then it would be even more beautiful when it blooms again. You could sit on a pretty garden bench underneath, play your banjo, and sing songs to your beloved—and the garage would be safe. Win—Win. And if you are inclined, you could root all those canes and plant more Rambling Rectors come spring.

In a few weeks I am going to do the unthinkable: I’m going to transplant a rose from my mother-in-law’s house to a pot at my house, 500 miles south. I’m going to water it for 24 hours, cut it back by half the next day, dig it up on the third day and put it one of those heavy paper lawn-waste bags and bring it home. Husband doesn’t know yet; negotiations forthcoming. Because he’ll say, “Why don’t you just buy a new one?”
This rose: https://www.antiqueroseemporium.com/roses/2117/caldwell-pink

“If you carefully cut it back this fall, you could build an arbor upon which to redirect the canes”

By “you” Deborah means Uncle Badger….

“You could sit on a pretty garden bench underneath, play your banjo, and sing songs …. ”

By “you”, Deborah means Weasel…..

😉

All teasing aside, a rose arbor sounds wonderful..

Deborah that is a gorgeous rose. For what it’s worth, I transplanted one of my shrub roses (from one garden bed to a new location) and it is flourishing. I did what you describe: water, cut it back, dig it up/replant, except I did it in March when it was supposed to still be dormant.

“Roses are red
Violets are purple
You’re as sweet
As maple syruple”

Sweasel: could you add a link to that pic in color?

Here you go, AliceH.

The shagginess at right is actually an elder tree blending into the rose. It, too, has masses of white flowers, but with slightly different timing.

At the moment, it’s covered in elderberries and we’re trying our best not to track the little suckers in.

I had to look up elder flowers. They look like little satellites 🙂

So lovely! Now I know what I’ll be planting along the neighbors’ retaining wall. Once they get around to fixing the disaster of a wall that is there now. (New and ambitious fixer-upper neighbors, very old and unmaintained rock wall.)

All these white flowers…who are you? Vita Sackville-West? lololol!

Your garden does look very inviting.

For those of you who like old English homes, and I do, the series Restoration Home has been uploaded to youtube. It seems the most frustrating aspect of restoration of old homes is getting approval/permits. I dont know if stoaty/Uncle B’s home has similar restrictions but there are long delays before they approve/reject your plans. Anyway, it is a very good show. Let’s all chip in and buy a manor house!

https://goo.gl/n46tYq

Ric Fan – sadly, yes. The house is what they call Grade II listed, which doesn’t make it particularly rare (Her Stoatliness thinks there are about 500,000 of them in the UK) but it does mean we have to get permits before making alterations. It also sets conditions on how we maintain it (for example, we can only use lime mortar).

As for roses, I first saw Rambling Rector 30 or so years ago and vowed I would have one, someday. Now I have and I’ve no regrets other than that he really is threatening to take down that garage roof. I’m hopeless at pruning, as you can see from Stoaty’s picture.

I like the David Austin roses too, AliceH and have a few, but I’ve developed a bit of a fascination with the old roses that went into their bloodline (sap line?). This year I planted a Portland rose, Jacques Cartier, and he seems to be doing quite well. I was going to plant one of my all time favourites, Queen of Denmark, but there is a very good specialist rose nursery (fairly) locally and I took the owner’s advice to opt for JC instead as he repeat flowers rather more than Q of D.

Good luck with your rose moving, Deborah HH! I have to move ‘Madame Alfred Cariere’ next year and I’m not looking forward to it. Vita Sackville West used to refer to her as ‘Mrs Alfonso’s Career’, I gather. Disrespectful old trout!

I’ve about run out of room for more roses now, unless I take some other plants out… possibly just as well as we suffer a lot from black spot here and the hippies in the EU have banned almost all the chemicals that combat it.

Stoaty,

When do we get to see the art you are submitting to the artist thingamajig for public consumption? We are also your public but you have a built in cheering section with us.

The hardest part is finding a rose with hips.

@wolfus
“The hardest part is finding a rose with hips.”

Ah, you would be looking for a Demi-Rose then.

Couldn’t help myself – quelle surprise.

I know it is popular to pick the fruit from abandoned fruit trees which are all over the UK. I assume most of it goes to food banks but not all.

Is there a name for it? Or, is it just called foraging?

Interesting headstone. I have no idea what the large”A” means:

https://twitter.com/pacoulmag/status/894454364378722304

Comment from Ric Fan
Time: August 7, 2017, 6:03 pm

Another name for the activity is “gleaning.”

Comment from Ric Fan
Time: August 7, 2017, 7:13 pm
Interesting headstone. I have no idea what the large”A” means…

~
Ric Fan,
It’s not a large “A” but a Masonic square and compasses, the symbols of Freemasonry.

Thanks! I thought the word only applied to grains but it does apply to fruit.

Uh-oh, someone put up the WeaselSignal…