Leander is finally putting on a show on the corner post of the front verandah. Of all the David Austin roses in the garden, he has probably been the most disappointing. The buds appear with a beautiful apricot colouring, the flowers open with the same promise, only to fade to a washed-out pink within a day or two. And he has been very mean and stingy with the number of flowers up until now. In fact, there have been no flowers since about this time last year! The books say he flowers all the time. In his defence, I must admit that the garden there is really quite dry, but unfortunately that's the nature of my garden. Survive in the dry or make room!
My other issue with Leander is completely my own doing! When planting in the garden, it is a basic necessity to take into consideration the colours of neighbouring flowers and when you plant in a slap-happy fashion, you end up with soft apricot (or washed-out pink) Leander growing next to Reine des Violettes. Ouch! That is a clashing combination!
Reine also suffers from the dry situation in the garden but is much, much more generous with flowers. In fact, the weight of the flowers has caused the weedy stems to topple to the ground. That and the galeforce winds we have been experiencing up until today! The experts say that when pruning, one should remove all spindly stems that are thinner than a pencil - poor Reine des Violettes would be leveled to the ground!
Definitely more water required on this garden bed! And maybe a little more feeding.
What's eating you, Mary Rose? :-(
No comments:
Post a Comment