WILD EVE - A BEAUTIFUL AND RELIABLE ROSE

Once upon a time, I had plans to have a rose garden and when I moved into my present home, I had many in my garden.  I wanted them rambling and climbing along the fences.  I wanted them putting on a glorious display in the garden beds.  I wanted them to fill my garden with fragrance and colour.  Of course, we all know that what we want isn't always what we get.  Now that the air is cleaner the roses, which once flourished free of disease like rust and blackspot, succumb to those nuisances and chemical spraying became necessary.  Now, I don't like to have to spray my garden with chemicals.  For one thing, I don't like it, the pollinating insects don't like it, and I don't want my pet Ragdoll cat, Alfie, being affected by such chemicals.  On top of that, the fact that I have a very tricky balance problem meant that I kept getting impaled on rose thorns when gravity grabbed me.  So, I had to say goodbye to roses.  Most of them anyway.  Now I just have two roses, climbing ones, that do very well on my north-facing fence although they are inclined to clamber over to the sunny side.  I just keep dragging them back.  The roses in question are Wild Eve and New Dawn. 







Wild Eve (a David Austin rose) - among the honeysuckle

Of course, New Dawn and Wild Eve do get pesky aphids now and then but I have found that aphids don't survive very well when gently squeezed.  I then simply blast off their squidged bodies with water.  The trouble with greenfly getting out of hand is that they leave a sticky residue onto which the spores of rose diseases happily stick.  Getting rid of the stickiness is as important as getting rid of the aphids. 

Greenfly on a garden centre rose - 2013