I got a bargain from Morrisons on Monday, a Charles de Mills Gallica rose for £1.99! I always look at their plants when getting my elderly fathers shopping every Monday. Unfortunately all the other roses were hybrid teas which I am not a lover of-give me an old fashioned rose any day!(a good description of myself I think-well the old fashioned part!)
Still havent got my camera working or learnt to use Kates complicated one properly yet, so heres a Charles de Mill from google images

have planted it in between Ferdinand Pitchard and Rose de Rescht, surrounded by peonies, larkspur, oriental and annual poppies and lavenders. Cant wait to see it flower hopefully this summer.
Well back to decorating.....

I started this blog really to be my garden diary, which I never really got around to, but from this time of year, most of my posts will now be my garden. I wanted to a week by week diary to see what was flowering and to see how the seasons are changing and plants flowering early than previous years. I have to spend at least 2 hours every day from now on in the garden (what a good excuse!) It was so lovely to actually get in the garden yesterday and do some gardening (before more snow is predicted!) I decided to move quite a few things around and dug up the potato patch (found lots of potatoes still in the soil!) and planted my soft fruit bushes there instead. Thornless Blackberry, Tayberry, loganberry, about 20 raspberries, loads of black and red currants, and gooseberries. I had forgotten which were the black and which were the red currants, until I dug them up. The overpowering smell of blackcurrant came from one bush, it was like dunking my head into undiluted ribena! I had never noticed this before, and it seemed to come from just one blackcurrant bush. The potatoes are now going to be growing in potato bags, as it will be so much easier to earth them up I feel. I struggled last year in the rows which was rather akward, hence finding lots still in the ground yesterday-I shouldnt have that problem with bags. My strawberries I am also going to grow in bags this year, £3 in Morrisons, like the planters with pockets for the strawberries or herbs, but made from black woven plastic. Wilkinsons do some, but in a horrendous orange..... In the place of the soft fruit I have planted my favourite of all flowers, the rose.
There are 6 arches going across that part of the garden, like a division in between my herb garden and my brick parterre, and I had the fruit and grapevines growing across the arches, but now in place of the fruit are climbers and ramblers Albertine, Alberic Barbier,






 Golden Showers, Pauls Lemon Pillar, Emily Gray, Penny Lane, Felicite Perpetue and Pauls Scarlet - I also bought David Austin Heritage and Burgundy Ice which I have wanted for a couple of years, it is a sport of the white Iceberg, but has dark burgundy flowers - cant wait to see that one flower. I need about another 8 bush roses which will be all David Austin or Old English Roses. I dont really like modern roses, although buy some which have an old look about them. But for me theres nothing like a Bourbon or Damask rose. Every year the one thing I look forward to is my roses blooming, and being 56 soon, I am starting to count the rest of my life not in years, but how many times I will see and smell  the roses.