• In the Garden

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The first rose of summer

posted by Terry OShaughnessy at 10h09

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The first rose of summer is always hugely appreciated. (Photo by Terry O'Shaughnessy)

The first rose of summer, that all important first rose, is nearly finished. It never lasts long, but my Canadian Explorer rose called "Jens Munk" is prolific to say the least.

Single, fragrant bright pink flowers stud every stem that has easily the most thorns I've ever seen on a rose. But maybe that's why it’s so hardy, and survives every winter like a trooper.

The bees made (ahem) a beeline for it as soon as it started to bloom about a week or so ago. In fact, there were so many bees in the hundred or so roses, you could hear the hum from a few yards away.

What I find amazing about this rose bush is that I never seem to find any aphids on it. My other rose bushes have begun to bloom in the last day or two – and they already have fat greedy aphids gorging themselves inside the fresh flowers.

The aphids don’t know it yet but they’re about to get potentially lethal doses of dishwashing soap sprayed on them to scare them away. But they don’t scare easily.

Aphids are the hyenas of the garden: scary-looking, eating everything in sight and just defying you to remove them from their dinners. Even the bees can’t easily dislodge them.

Aphids are very well named, when you think of it, being so close to the word ‘avid.’ Because I’m sure if you wired up your beleaguered rose bushes, all you would hear would be the sound of chomping. So it’s time to get downstairs, find the atomizer/sprayer-thing from last year and prepare the dishwashing liquid for attack.

Maybe it’s just an old wives tale, and doesn’t really work – but it can be very satisfying to hold that bottle in your hand and spray the living daylights out of your aphids. And your roses will appreciate the effort. Because unlike the first rose of summer, which has a full suit of armour with all those crazy thorns, the tender second roses of summer are not nearly as tough.