Showers of pink

Monday night when we returned home having been away for a few days visiting some friends and relatives, I noticed that my Pink Showers climbing roses had dropped their last flowers. I also realized I haven’t posted anything on them yet even though they were blooming quite brilliantly towards the end of their first summer.

I once lived for a while in a house with a very small fenced patch of a garden decorated with a single magnificent bright red Flammentanz climbing rose rambling up a pillar supporting the terrace. I loved it and had a stem or two in a vase all summer. I wanted to have something similar at my place but have had rather bad luck with the Flammentanz roses I planted in my garden a few years ago. They have suffered from the hard winters and now they were not blooming at all as they bloom on last year’s growth.

Knowing this I decided to try another climbing variety and happened to choose Pink Showers. The weather was rather bad this season but they have been a success on a sunny spot by the house, at least for now. Only recently they were cascading so heavily the stems couldn’t hold the blooms without support.

This spring I also planted some shrub roses and happened to choose Bonica 82 (var. Meidomonac). This is a pale pink beauty and seems to be hardy and disease-resistant as promised. All my three plants are still producing buds and should do so until the first autumn frosts.

I can’t wait to see how all these new roses will survive their first Nordic winter. If they make it I might plant a few more next spring. Roses may be just the thing required to wake up the hidden gardener in me. But who wouldn’t love roses! If you had the means it would be so easy to love them almost to the point of obsession and nurture a hundred varieties like Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild.