West Midlands Rose Society     DAY  OF  ROSES

                                                       29 September 2010   at  David  Austin  Roses, Albrighton

 

The West Midlands Rose Society held its first ‘Day of Roses’ on September 29th 2010 in this lovely setting.  Friends of the rose were able to meet up to listen to illustrated talks and join in cheerful discussion about roses, despite the rather doubtful weather.

The event attracted professionals and amateurs alike. Members of the West Midlands Society were joined by new friends from Southampton, from RHS Wisley, and from Spetchley Park in Worcestershire.  Guests enjoyed a varied and interesting day.  The morning session consisted of two lectures, both illustrated with wonderful pictures of roses in a variety of settings.  An excellent lunch was followed by a tour of the David Austin display gardens and then an extremely lively discussion session with a panel of experts.

Michael Marriott from David Austin roses was the first speaker with a presentation about how to use roses in the garden.  He indicated his own preference for roses with companion planting, with large groups of closely planted roses within mixed borders.  Suggestions included using alchemillia, penstemon, purple filbert, salvias, alium, verbascum and lavender.  The examples in his excellent photos were from the David Austin display gardens, his own private garden, Shropshire’s Wollerton Old Hall, borders he had designed at Trentham Gardens, David Austin Junior’s former private garden and new borders at RHS Harlow Carr.

Michael also showed us examples of rose hedges, spectacular ramblers (with photos from National Trust Mottisfont), the use of rugosas in Northumberland (at Howick Hall) and Queen Mary’s rose garden as an example of an excellent formal rose garden.

The second presentation was from David Kenny, the amateur rose breeder from Ireland, who provided a wide-ranging talk about “the greatest” roses which had played a significant part in the development of the rose and had reached the highest standards in their particular era.  Examples illustrated were hybrid teas Peace, Elina, Silver Jubilee and Warm Wishes; floribundas Anisley Dickson, Trumpeter (still very popular in Ireland) Arthur Bell, Fellowship and Tickled Pink.  He also spoke about current breeding developments such as attempts to breed stable-striped roses, such as Art Nouveau; roses with eyes, roses with ruffled petals, and purple climbers.

After a relaxed tour of the display gardens, in an unexpectedly dry bit of the day, the audience was given an afternoon opportunity to put questions and comments to our expert panel John Anthony of the WMRS, breeder Chris Warner, our two speakers, former RNRS president Ann Bird and Keith Jones of C and K Jones.  Some topics caused lively debate, especially soil deficiencies/rose sickness and the relative importance of scent, good health and novelty in rose-breeding programmes.

Our thanks to David Austins for hosting this event and to the members of the panel for taking part.  I went home having had a thoroughly enjoyable day in good company discussing and learning more about my favourite flower.  What a glorious and varied plant is the rose!

                                                                                      Ian Lancaster      October 2010