A day at the RHS London Rose Show – full & fragrant with five excellent talks … #RHSLondon #Roses

Claudio Bincoletto is at the show each day and I'm sorry that I'll miss his talk tomorrow afternoon (at 4pm now I think) - Roses and their exotic scent: preparations to preserve aroma, and the ancient secrets of rose water, rose jam and wild flower cordials, Claudio Bincoletto, Master Forager I'll also miss Peter Scott…

Meet Ausowlish, Auschimbley and Austritch – or rather my first look at Roald Dahl, Bathsheba and Imogen – 2016 introductions from David Austin Roses

New from David Austin roses, Roald Dahl, pictured here at RHS Chelsea Flower Show - an English Musk Hybrid with the trade name of Ausowlish. A touch of Comte de Champagne, The Lark Ascending  - shapely like Skylark and a touch of Jude the Obscure ... Altogether a pretty, poised rose - From the David…

Dodging the showers for a kaleidoscope of flower and fruit – roses, camellias, hellebores, hollies, decorative leaf, bark and seedheads

The roses too continue to put on a good show, with some near perfect blooms - and other joys - I'm hoping the rain will stop so I can get in an afew hours in my  own garden this afternoon - there are dahlias to lift and a venerable banana to wrap up before the…

C – for colour, colour and just a little more glorious colour…

A little colour, from the benches of Petersham Nurseries ... Below, Alstroemeria Inticacha Sunshine Little Miss Tara and Alstroemeria Little Miss Sophie, Little  Miss Emily

Roses and what to put with them – two rose gardens at RHS Wisley and some delicious complimentary planting

Hot Chocolate, in the Jubilee Rose Garden at RHS Wisley. I've seen this paired up with dark spiky salvias to great effect - just thinking about it, how about Amistad in the background. How sumptuous would that be? The Jubilee Rose garden, with central terrace and beds radiating outwards between grass paths, is a traditional…

Time Travel: The Trial Beds at David Austin Roses – A glimpse of the future…

David Austin roses would seem to have the most extensive, comprehensive and probably expensive rose breeding program of any rose nursery in the world (I may be biased but it likely to be true!). After making between fifty thousand and sixty thousand crosses each year - one rose with another and more complicated crosses from…

2 acres of Paradise? David Austin Roses at their Albrighton Nursery & Gardens – the best display in years methinks!

The Long Garden, Lion Garden, Victorian Garden and The Renaissance Gardens at David Austin's home ground at Albrighton in Shropshire. The site is home to these magnificent 2-acre gardens, the extensive plant centre, shop and restaurant as well as the business-end of things, the breeding glasshouses and trial beds, the production nursery for all of…

Roses, roses, roses and a long, long (rose-clothed) Pergola at Kew Gardens… galleries here and some moving pictures!

This long pergola with brick pillars and timber beams is clothed with some beautifully trained rambling and climbing roses. Beautiful monsters like Rosa filipes Kiftsgate ought to swamp the entire structure and much else besides but with the love and careful treatment these specimens are given, a multitude of flowers hug the cross beams and…

The Savill Garden and Windsor Great Park – summer cycling and a picnic, roses, dry gardens, shady glades and boggy bits, castles, lakes and wide open spaces

The Savill Garden was our first port of call today, an impressive collection of gardens within the larger vision of Windsor Great Park. I wanted to have a look at the rose garden in particular, a swirling design of tapering interlocking beds, the colour of the roses intensifying towards the centre (peaking with Munstead Wood,…