When one lives in a Cottage, one feels it is only right and proper to have roses growing around the front door, wouldn’t you agree? Not so the previous incumbents of Damson Cottage because when we took ownership just over 3 years ago, there was a pale and insipid hollyhock by the front door but sign of roses there was not.
It was one of the first gardening jobs I did, planting a rose by the front door. In the ‘Lost and Lonely’ part of a local garden centre, the last chance saloon for plants past their best, I found a half price climbing rose, or was it a rambling one? What’s the difference? Who knows? Anyway, I found this rose, ‘Starlight Express’ it was called, and I think I paid £6 or £7 for it. It was a small stick of a thing but I took it home and popped it in the ground and three years later...
Ta-dah!! And this is after me having to prune it back a bit so we can use the front door! A profusion of pretty pink and gorgeous smelling flowers, it’s been flowering since late May and will continue to romp on well into September. I’m going to have to create some kind of trellis thing to encourage it up and over the front door one way and up and over the front window the other. It clearly likes its situation. The rose done good!
The back door, when we arrived, was home to a massive fuchsia. Like, around 10 feet high. It was capable of mounting a sturdy attack if you were crossing the courtyard to the laundry, but it was beautiful - one of those red and purple colour combinations. However, last year it died. I don’t know if it was the long hot summer that did for it but it disintegrated into a dry, woody, twiggy shadow of its former self and having snapped a few bits from it, I declared it dead. Andy declared it wasn’t dead and perhaps I should give it a chance to recover, but when he was at work one day and I was at home roaming around with my secateurs (which is always a dangerous combination) the fuchsia got in the way of my secateurs and became an ex-fuchsia.
It was then that I noticed at its base a tiny sprout of a honeysuckle! About 6 inches it was. Or ten inches if you are a man. Anyway, it put up a heady growth of one flower bud and I thought, ‘This’ll be nice. A honeysuckle around the back door. I do hope it continues to grow now I’ve freed it from the oppression of the fuchsia.’ Or words to that effect.
And this is it today...
It was one of the first gardening jobs I did, planting a rose by the front door. In the ‘Lost and Lonely’ part of a local garden centre, the last chance saloon for plants past their best, I found a half price climbing rose, or was it a rambling one? What’s the difference? Who knows? Anyway, I found this rose, ‘Starlight Express’ it was called, and I think I paid £6 or £7 for it. It was a small stick of a thing but I took it home and popped it in the ground and three years later...
Ta-dah!! And this is after me having to prune it back a bit so we can use the front door! A profusion of pretty pink and gorgeous smelling flowers, it’s been flowering since late May and will continue to romp on well into September. I’m going to have to create some kind of trellis thing to encourage it up and over the front door one way and up and over the front window the other. It clearly likes its situation. The rose done good!
The back door, when we arrived, was home to a massive fuchsia. Like, around 10 feet high. It was capable of mounting a sturdy attack if you were crossing the courtyard to the laundry, but it was beautiful - one of those red and purple colour combinations. However, last year it died. I don’t know if it was the long hot summer that did for it but it disintegrated into a dry, woody, twiggy shadow of its former self and having snapped a few bits from it, I declared it dead. Andy declared it wasn’t dead and perhaps I should give it a chance to recover, but when he was at work one day and I was at home roaming around with my secateurs (which is always a dangerous combination) the fuchsia got in the way of my secateurs and became an ex-fuchsia.
It was then that I noticed at its base a tiny sprout of a honeysuckle! About 6 inches it was. Or ten inches if you are a man. Anyway, it put up a heady growth of one flower bud and I thought, ‘This’ll be nice. A honeysuckle around the back door. I do hope it continues to grow now I’ve freed it from the oppression of the fuchsia.’ Or words to that effect.
And this is it today...
It’s about two feet tall and flowering nicely. You will also notice, the plant observant amongst you, that there is a taller plant growing behind it. This is the bloody fuchsia which turns out wasn’t bloody dead after all and is sticking up the plant equivalent of a middle finger at me. No doubt Andy will have something to say about this but he is up the garden at the moment building a new chicken run so I shan’t disturb him.
I would rather keep the honeysuckle over the fuchsia. The fuchsia may meet with another secateur-related accident. Unless I can tease it out of the ground (unlikely) and plant it elsewhere. Anyway, I fancy to have a swathe of honeysuckle growing around the back door. Trained over an archway, maybe. A little natural porch thingy. All romantic and sweet-scented. And full of bees! Ah yes!
Comments