30 days hath September,
April, June, and … [you know the rest]…
30 days? That many? It feels as though August was just last week.
September breezed in and breezed out again and I can’t say there’s been all that much of note happening in the garden. What there has been, has tended to be a little drawn out, like getting the shed mended and painted and organised. It’s still happening.
Our weekends have been tied up with visitors and trips away to the Big Smoke. I started a new work contract at the beginning of October and I’m still figuring out what that’s all about after 6 months of leisure and gardening.
So for this post I’m not going to talk about our September chores. Instead I’m going to share some of the beautiful roses and hydrangeas that bloomed in the summer.
Why bother to plant roses?
Roses are famously difficult and temperamental. Black spot, rust, powdery mildew, crown gall, to name a few of the more common diseases. The flowers are lovely but the effort – the arcane pruning lore you must learn alongside the battle with disease – makes you wonder if they’re worthwhile.
Fortunately Woodridge has a mix of rose types: climbing, rambling, bush, rugosa (and probably some others I don’t know the name of) so there’s a good chance of at least some of them paying off.
Bush rose
This little rose flowered reliably through the summer and then had another, less enthusiastic go into the autumn. I’ve no idea what it’s called. We call it ‘that little pink one beside the path above the house’.
Climbing rose
I know the name of this one! It’s Albertine. It climbs over the pergola on the front of the house and up around the living room window. I think it was put there because it has a good fragrance and the idea was that it would waft in through the windows.
Unfortunately the summer weather didn’t allow for many evenings of open windows so the scent was lost a bit. But the view of its gorgeous blooms from the sun room, living room and outside was stunning.
Rambling roses
We have 2 of the most famous rambling roses climbing over trees next to the driveway: the Rambling Rector and Kiftsgate.
I think one of those trees is probably not long for this world as the stems and branches are very weak. The massive Kiftsgate rose all over it isn’t exactly helping. But it’s stunning for as long as it lasts.
Ever wondered what hydrangeas symbolise?
Well naturally it depends on who you ask.
One website says it’s gratitude, grace and beauty. And abundance. And love, harmony and peace. Another reckons it’s boastfulness (I can kind of see that in the big showy flowers).
Yet another breaks it down to colour: pink for heartfelt emotion, blue for frigidity and apology, white for boasting or bragging, and purple for a desire to deeply understand someone.
That’s an awful lot of symbolism to pile onto one species of flower. Although, that said, our hydrangeas do come in a lot of different sizes, shapes and colours, so maybe not.
I think there are 13 hydrangea bushes scattered around the garden but I’m not completely certain. Each time I counted it seems there was another set of flowers emerging somewhere.
And finally…
No decent human being can get this far through a blog post about September without Earth, Wind and Fire….
Next time I will catch up on some actual gardening for September and October. But for now…
Hey, hey, hey
Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember?
Ba-dee-ya, dancing in September
Ba-dee-ya, never was a cloudy day
Be First to Comment