I take it all back - Sir David Austin was right!

Patience has never been a particularly strong suit of mine - especially when waiting for a plant to finally bud and flower, or for seedlings to germinate. I check on seedlings, especially, so frequently that if anything they die of overwatering and too much 'love' and attention.

In this case definitely a few more days has made all the difference. Here are the photos of how my rose is looking now, and I think it's fair to say that the flowers have 'mellowed' and are now much more like those in the catalogue, so I can relax and be happy :o)

Rosa Harlow Carr: According to David Austin

Having seen and smelt the flowers on my rose bush now I thought i'd compare how they look to the pictures in the David Austin rose on-line rose catalogue... I don't know about you, but there does seem to be a slight difference. Although, perhaps as the flowers age they will look more like the Austin picture perhaps?? Admittedly my rose's flowers aren't totally open yet, unlike the picture on the Austin site. I do hope that the flowers look a bit more rustic/dishevelled as they open up further as at the moment they're a bit too alarmingly 'pretty pretty' and perfect - I was hoping for a slightly more cottage garden type look, nothing too perfect/formal.

Here's the picture on the David Austin website:

Rose Watch '09: The first flowers!

Well, the waiting is over and after watching the buds carefully for the last week I stepped outside this morning into the grey, drab, rainy day to discover that the buds had suddenly decided to open! Not very nice weather to welcome them, but the droplets of water do look really pretty on the petals. Believe it or not I have actually thinned the flowers by cutting out a good few buds to try and let the remaining ones grow bigger - although looking at these pictures there still seem to be lots of buds clustered together, so maybe I'll have to be a bit harsher...

Oh, and most importantly, I can also happily report that the scent is very pleasant indeed! :o)

Rose Watch '09: Pink!

Well, since the 5th of May when the rose only had a few leaves on its rather short stumpy stems, there has been a serious amount of growth. Most importantly now we're getting to the exciting part when it's looking like it's going to flower... look, see, the colour is starting to show:

Rose Watch '09: It's budding! :o)

Well, i'm happy to report that the rose is budding nicely! They're quite small at the moment so i'm hoping that the greenfly situation doesn't stop them developing properly... I'm really pleased with how many there are though :o) (that is rose buds and NOT greenfly!)

Argh! You snooze, you lose... but at least the rose is looking happy (for the moment)

Well, I've been a bit lax with updating my blog over the last 3 weeks. I'm just finishing a year long course in Horticulture and what with finishing up my coursework, studying for the end of year exam, and applying for a job in a near by (plant) nursery, things have been a tad busy! argh! (Oh, I was successful getting the job so i'm well chuffed!)

Luckily, my plants seem to have faired pretty well considering they've been quite neglected. The rose has put on huge amounts of healthy looking growth (I hadn't realised quite how much until I looked back at the earlier photos I'd posted).

However, unfortunately, the green fly that I noticed on the lavender plants a couple of weeks ago, seem to be continuing their bid for world domination... and have spread to the my rose - argh!!! It's early days yet, I've only spotted a very few, but it just goes to show that you can't afford to be complacent in this game and that whilst there are hardly any aphids left on the lavenders anymore... I fear that the problem has simply moved home to a newer, tastier venue. So, I really must do something - i'm thinking of discarding the infested pot of tulips this afternoon, and then ordering some ladybirds and/or larvae this evening. My new rose bush, as the little green critters must learn to understand, is not on their menu! 

If you look carefully, you can see a couple of aphids on the new leaves.

Rose Watch 2009

This is it! The start of Rose Watch 2009 - just how successfully will an old english rose grow in a container?

After spending what must have been half of the winter months pouring over a David Austin rose catalogue I finally ordered a rose variety called 'Harlow Carr'. I planted it up carefully in what I hope will be a large enough pot - that was on the 27th March. It was a bareroot bush so didn't look like much at all at first. However, just over a month on, there are leaves! Which is all very exciting :o) Only time will tell though as to whether it'll flower - and how well. I chose this variety as it is meant to be a strong pink colour, vigorous (so should grow happily in Scotland), can put up with some shade, and will hopefully have a strong scent. Fingers Xed this turns out to be true! I have dreams of walking up the steps breathing in sweet wafts of rose perfume... hopefully they'll become reality.

Here's what the rose looked like not long after it was first planted in March, and then now looking much better with some leaves: