Roses are not my specialty. But they are nevertheless essential to most gardens. In the Dumfriesshire Garden the big rose feature is the rambler on the metal arch. We try to tidy it up every winter as it seems to get more and more unruly. But the effect can be fantastic. It’s had a really good year in 2024, as can be seen here, and with extended flowering,
I have a couple of paeony roses in a not sunny enough and slightly out of the way spot, so as soon as they start to bloom I cut them, bring them into the house and let my inner florist get to work.
This year I also planted a new short climbing rose, named after Gertrude Jekyll, one of the great garden innovators of the 19th and 20th centuries. The rose is a wonderful deep pink colour and has a lovely old-fashioned fragrance. It is settling in well, propped up by a couple of hazel rods for support, though I’m looking for a more decorative frame for next year.
Finally, let’s not forget the borrowed landscape and in this case, the lovely, delicate dog roses that appear in June along the boundaries and watery margins of the garden. They too are well worthy of their place.
The full list of pieces that make up my A-Z in the Dumfriesshire Garden in 2024 can be found here: https://davidgrahamclark.net/a-z-of-the-dumfriesshire-garden-in-2024/
Quotidian 
By coincidence, Elaine and I were reading Richard Mabey’s The Accidental Garden when we noticed your A-Z and began to follow it. By greater coincidence, today’s chapter from The Accidental Garden was titled Rose-Tinted, and is full of roses. This has prompted reminiscence about our own experience with roses.
When we came here twenty years ago with a somewhat naive commitment to plant only native species in an area which had formerly been pasture, we used rosa rubignosa widely within hedges and it has been very successful. One plant has climbed almost ten meters through a holly tree and its hips compensate for the fact that the tree is male and has no berries of its own.
Excursions into garden roses include a Rambling Rector that had to be cut back from the eaves of the house and transplanted elsewhere where it continues to rampage. Also a pair of Generous Gardeners which were eaten to ground level by deer but when transplanted into the hen run have flowered generously, if in some obscurity, ever since.
Our conclusion being, that rose growing is definitely best left to the specialist. [Comment written under wifely advisement.]
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An excellent comment, my thanks to you both. Your garden sounds fascinating and has parallels with mine, which was started in 1997 and carved out of pasture and overgrown, in places boggy, ground. I read some of Richard Mabey’s books on foraging and weeds but don’t know the Accidental Garden. I must take a look. The A-Z has been a challenge, but I might try a monthly garden post in 2025. I find journals and chronologies very amenable to write within, where the pre-set structure seems to push me along.
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We have enjoyed reading your A-Z. So far as comparison of our own garden with yours is concerned, well, we’ve seen your pictures, and we have no plan to put ours on the internet. Our focus is pro-wildlife, but also pro-low maintenance. You should consider opening your garden to the public for a day, a good charity fundraiser at a time you judge it to be at its best – throw in some cream teas and I’m sure you’d do well.
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