GARDENS:Prune them, feed them, mulch them, dead-head them - but please don't spray them, writes Jane Powers.
I FEEL A BIT of an imposter writing about roses, especially as I have whittled down the rose quotient in my garden to a handful of plants. And especially since another Irish garden writer, Dermot O'Neill, has written a whole, sumptuous book on them (Roses Revealed, published by Kyle Cathie, £25). But high summer dictates that we must speak of roses, so speak I will - and so also will you, I hope (I'll tell you how in a minute).
The reason I culled my roses (and, indeed, why some of them culled themselves) is that they demanded more attention than I was willing to give them. In the words of Noel McEvoy of Dublin City Council, who is one of the people in charge of the famous rose garden at St Anne's Park in Raheny: "having certain roses is a bit like having a poodle: they're high maintenance". And indeed they are: calling for pruning, feeding, mulching, dead-heading, debris clearing, and - if you want to avoid black spot, aphids, powdery mildew, rust and a host of other pests and diseases - spraying.
I'm not averse to a bit of gentle pruning (and the thorny off-cuts can be used to deter cats from performing their ghastly business in one's flower beds), nor do I mind applying the occasional mulch, or whipping off spent flower clusters with my secateurs. But I'm not keen on pruning unruly ramblers and climbers, nor on tying them into their supporting structures (an operation that results in torn flesh, more often than not), nor do I feel like scrabbling around under the prickly legs of roses, removing fallen leaves that might be harbouring fungal spores. And I absolutely refuse to spray my roses.
The most commonly used spray for roses contains a fungicide (which targets black spot, mildew, rust and other fungal diseases) and an insecticide. The latter substance is bifenthrin, a pyrethroid chemical which affects the nervous system of insects. It doesn't target just aphids, it kills all insects and other creepy crawlies, including beneficial bees, beetles, ladybirds and spiders. It is also highly toxic to fish, and moderately toxic to birds. Small, insect-eating birds are more at risk than others. Once, I was present when an entire family of blue tits was wiped out by eating poisoned insects, and this grim demonstration of the knock-on effects of pesticides has haunted me ever since.
Aphids tend to congregate around flower buds and new growth. Their sap-sucking activities cause distortion to leaves and flowers, and may introduce diseases. But, as I've mentioned before, aphids have a short life cycle, and re-establish numbers quickly after poisoning. On the other hand, their invertebrate predators, which are also killed by most sprays, take much longer to rebuild their ranks. So, if you zap your aphids once, you have to do it again and again to avoid a population explosion - because you've also killed off all their six- and eight-legged hunters. Far better to whoosh them off with a hose, or to let nature do the work. It is a lot more entertaining to watch a bunch of blue tits and sparrows cleaning your rose bushes, instead of doling out wholesale death with a spray every two weeks.
Thus far, this page seems to be more about rose disorders than the roses themselves. But that's what I'm getting at: roses are indeed the poodles of the plant world, and few of them get by without enormous amounts of care. I'm in search of roses that are rugged, unfussy, and forgiving of neglect. In my garden, for instance, Rosa californica 'Plena' is one such trooper, content to live on a dry-as-dust slope, in poor soil, and in part shade. Plant "care" consists of the odd dishpan of water hurled over it, and rough pruning every couple of years. Like many species of rose (as opposed to the highly bred kinds), it never gets black spot. And although it flowers just once, for about a month, its hot-pink, perfumed blooms are one of the high points in my midsummer garden.
Rosa 'Mutabilis', although it does get black spot (which matches its dark stems, so it hardly counts) is also a valiant plant, uncomplainingly suffering drought and starvation. It is a China rose, a kind originally raised for warm climates, which is why it does so well in dry, urban soil. It flowers for at least half the year. The buds are a garish shade of lipstick-pink, they open a yellowy-peach shade, change to rich pink, and finally darken to crimson before dying: hence the name.
Another trouble-free rose with a long flowering season is Rosa glauca, with smoky blue-grey foliage, pink flowers and lovely red hips in autumn. The rugose rose, R. rugosa, with pink or white blooms, is similarly productive and trouble-free, and again, has beauteous, terracotta hips.
Sharp-eyed gardeners will have noticed that the roses mentioned above are all wild, or nearly wild species - and as such are less demanding, and more disease-resistant than more highly-bred kinds. What I would like to know (and here's where you, fellow gardeners, can help): are there any truly trouble-free roses bred by humans? Various breeders and rose purveyors offer lists (and the internet is full of them), but what we're after here is first-hand experience from Irish gardeners. Do you have a rose that grows in dreadful soil (dry, stony or boggy), that doesn't look for food or drink, and that remains happy, floriferous and healthy? Let us know, by e-mail or letter.
Until then, I'm going to stick with my few, uncomplicated roses here at home, and wait for your suggestions.