The roses are coming into colour.  The damask rose is already in full bloom.  With the heat of the sun the scent of these gorgeous long-stemmed red roses is positively intoxicating!

The smaller hot pink rose at the top corner of our terrace (just to the edge of the newt pond) is showing licks of colour.

And in the back patch, the whole back fence will soon be awash with white rambling rose.  The rambling rose seems this year to have a little powedery mildew, but hopefully this will not effect the flowering and I’ll give the whole thing a huge trim down once the flowers fade. (Rambling roses tend to only bloom once a season, and deadheading does not result in return of flowers.)

In the perennial bed that runs along the railway path the strangely mauve roses donated by Jo & Paddy has been in bloom for at least a week. As the photo below shows, it’s a fairly psychedelic looking rose.

Mauve roses from the back patch.

And so it is as in much else in life that each rose is unique and has its own properties and habits.  Although we love roses generally, not all roses are equal.

Yes, there are definitely favourites – particularly the ‘Deep Secret’ Damask.

And in particular I am very fond of yellow blooming roses – the bigger and blousier the better!  There’s a very mature yellow flowering rose that drapes over from a backgarden in the back-patch – a welcome addition of colour and scent to the side of the huge cherry tree (shown in the photo below).

Over the coming days and weeks we’ll try to document the blooms from all the various roses in our diverse growing patches as they come into bloom.

Yellow rose in back patch.

Pink rose at top corner of allotment. Came into bloom 7 May 2020.