Coming up roses!

The roses are blooming and Val is in her element

- Val Bourne

I’M in heaven! It’s rose time and I have a large collection at Spring Cottage. My rose, peony and phlox borders are close to the cottage. There’s a cutting garden, although I can’t bear to cut the roses in it! There are roses up my garden path and there are billowing roses spilling over the low stone walls. I have never counted them in and out, but I continue to plant more of them because they do so well in the wonderfully named village of Cold Aston.

The sheer number of roses I grow here always comes as a surprise, or should that be a shock to new garden visitors, because many gardeners still believe that roses need a chemical regime to treat black spot and aphids. The blue tits and aphid predators, such as ladybirds and hoverfly larva, clean up my aphids for me. And my roses are deliberately chosen for their health and vigour so they don’t suffer any blackspot.