Pinks today..

Soul. More deep pink than red at present:

Three in their first season..

Comtesse de Liger-Belair. A keeper, well you’ve heard me singing it’s praises a lot! I’ve had a number of Delbard roses that were stingy bloomers, so it’s a pleasant change to discover a healthy, highly fragrant, decently weather resistant and floriferous one. This must be the fifth or even sixth flush, I’ve lost count:

Kaffe Fassett. A promising start, might get another year. Healthy, medium citrussy fragrance, stayed reasonably compact but it did struggle to bloom in summer heat. Has small clusters on rather stiff pedicels, so they can look squished together if the central bud is not nipped out:

I’m enjoying the last of Noblesse before it gets the chop. Lovely blooms with musky/old rose fragrance, but sadly they fry far to easily here. Typically Tantau overly vigorous habit, shooting skywards with blooms in the air:

^ I saw Noblesse on a video of Tantau’s own gardens, which inspired me to try it. There it looked more compact, with crisper but not crispy blooms. It could be a great rose in the UK/cooler climes than mine.

A debut after dark…

Lady Emma Hamilton making her first appearance on here, photographed after dark this evening.

Still flowering on the first evening of October, with plenty more buds waiting in the wings. She’s been an absolute joy in her first season here and refreshingly upright for an Austin.

Rosa ‘Lady Emma Hamilton’ 🌹

My Lady Em is having a moment too. Peter. As part of my rose downsizing I have removed two out of four, leaving just one in the oranges and lemons border plus this potted one:

Just Joey again:

Other roses are slowly being replaced by tough shrubby things..

In a narrow edge of terrace bed, Abraham Darby and Honey Bouquet have now been replaced by three compact Nandina Domestica ’Gulfstream’ to eventually merge together and form a short hedge. Palais Biron and Yolande d’Aragón have made way for a gaura and a shrubby salvia respectively and another Loropetalum Black Pearl is waiting in the wings to replace Flamenco Rosita.

I’m on a weekly hunt for replacement shrubs as random stock trickles into the GC’s for autumn, hoping to find some more Teuicrium Fruiticans and maybe some Phlomis and Berberis Helmand’s Pillar. The last two used to be regular GC staples, but now I want them, they are frustratingly and inexplicably hard to find!