Shrub roses

[NightHawk]

We watched an old episode of Gardeners World the other day and it was all about Roses.

It got us thinking....

In our planned cottage garden at the front we have a short section of border that parallels the front path...perhaps a nice Shrub Rose would work well there.

So I did some searching about and decided to go for David Austin's The Mayflower. I must admit the excellent health feature of the rose was a deciding factor in the choice. I don't want it to grow 8 feet high and shade the whole bed. This one is not that high!

So I hope I made the right choice as we went out this morning and bought 3

Has anyone got any experience on shrub roses?

I have 3 roses in my back garden,

Graham Thomas a lovely yellow.

 A lovely single flowering peach rose that I am sorry to say I have forgotten the name of. It was named in memory of the Jennifer Trust for Spinal Muscular Atrophy, maybe it was called Jennifer Trust??

The last one I have had for donkey's years, Zepherine Drouhin a lovely climbing thornless rose and beautiful scent, but I have ruined the poor thing by pruning too hard one year and now it only gets to about knee height. I really should replace it but I feel guilty 

Kathy

[NightHawk]

Well, here's the result of our Graham Thomas rose, which we think has turned out pretty good.

It's still blooming away nicely, and still lots more buds to open.

Laurie.

[ideasguy]

Nice one Laurie! email one of those to me, please!
Does it have fragrance?

[NightHawk]

Unfortunately George, the rose does not have any fragrance.

However, it is a good bloomer.

It's bloomed every year from Summer into Autumn, and even into November.

A ZIP file is on its way to you as we speak.

Laurie.

[ideasguy]

Thanks for sending the file, Laurie.

Heres some good info (as always) from the BBC website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/760.shtml

Give it another sniff, Kathy and Laurie. David Austin's roses are famous for fragrance, and the BBC site seems to indicate that Graham Thomas has fragrance..
However, sometimes fragrance can  be elusive. I know from my own experience that I can smell a scented flower once and "get it", sniff again and don't. The Chocolate Plant (Cosmos atrosanguineus) is one in that bracket that comes to mind - a faint but very distinctive fragrance. Also honeysuckle.
Ive also notiiced that some plants give off more scent at particular times - e.g. in the evening, after a light shower of rain etc etc (depending on the type of plant).

[NightHawk]

We've just smelt the rose again, but still no scent. 

So, we've done evening and early morning up to now.

We'll keep trying at different times and let you know under what conditions, if any, we notice any fragrance.

Laurie.

[ideasguy]

Maybe its a dud   

[NightHawk]

It's possible I suppose. 

Apart from the lack of scent it's performed brilliantly.

The only other way of testing the scent issue would be to buy another one as a comparison.

Maybe some of our other members have this rose and could give their input.

Laurie.

[ideasguy]

RE:

It's possible I suppose

I was only kidding. The flower looks absolutely beautiful! Lovely petal arrangement.

[NightHawk]

Something else occurred to us this morning whilst we were out in the back garden pottering about.

That big orange ball thing was in the sky again.    I don't know what's happening lately.

Anyway I digress.  Well, not exactly because it was this phenomenon in the sky that got us thinking.  The border where we have the rose planted is not in full sun.  That part of the border gets sun from early afternoon onwards.

Remembering the situation the rose is supposed to be planted in, i.e. Full Sun.  The amount of hours the rose would get may not tot up to the full sun criteria, so we were wondering if this is the reason for the lack of fragrance.

Maybe it's the sun that activates the appropriate chemicals found naturally in the rose.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Laurie.

[NightHawk]

A ray of hope just shone through to our rose at 1.30pm (there must be a pun in there somewhere).

The sun was on just one rose, the one I'd actually taken a photograph of and posted here (see above).  Now how spooky is that. 

Anyway, the sun must have been on it for about 15 minutes, so Kathy and I literally got up and smelt the roses.  And there was a subtle hint of fragrance coming from it. 

Now this seems to bear out my supposition that the sun could have been a factor here.  We carefully watched as the sun moved around (not all the time though  ) to see how much sun it was actually getting.
Unfortunately, there is also a Pieris to one side of it that is blocking the full extent of the sun.

If that's the case, then I think we've definitely got the position wrong.

We've decided to move it to a sunnier position, possibly into the front garden.

We'll still monitor its progress over time and keep checking the smell, and see if there is a marked difference.  We could make a horticultural breakthrough here.    Then again, maybe not.  We'll see.

Laurie.