Valentines day.  Oh dear.  Something of yesterday has intruded into today.  The jerkiness, the aimlessness, the elusiveness.  I will drive it away with lists.  All these plants are in the front garden.

Roses

Rosa glauca; once called Rosa rubrifolia, it is the one that grows in my Dad’s garden and was liked by my Mum.  It is a rose that self sows here and there, and the one in my garden did just that.  I’m not sure where it came from, but I have it now.  It grows at the house end of the rectangular border, near the front door.  It is quite small as yet.  The one in Dad’s garden is about eight feet tall.  Mine is about six inches.

Rosa, pink, double, repeat flowering, given to me by Juliet and moved here from Lavant when she moved.  I can’t remember its name.  It flourishes here, also in the rectangular border.

Rosa, again pink, this one comes from Peg’s garden.  The flowers are delicate in colour and delicate in impact, slightly lax, but rather beautiful.

Rosa, yellow, here when I go here, a hybrid T, again nameless as yet, slightly vulgar, but good in a vase.  It also has rather striking red shoots.

Rosa spinosissima andrewsii.  Well maybe.  Certainly a Scottish rose of some sort.  This one also comes from Peg’s garden.  Peg was Juliet’s grandmother, and died a year or two ago aged one hundred and one.  These last three roses are all in the border around the circular lawn.

Rosa, white.  Again no name.  Small flowered, white, single, flowers produced in masses, although perhaps not quite masses enough.  It grow against the house and is a climber or a rambler.  The first year I was here I caged it with hazel and it flowered a bit.  Last year I fixed it to wires on the house and it is up between the windows.  I will give it another year, maybe two, but it needs to perform more dramatically if it is to be worth its place.  It has to compete with an incredibly profuse white rose that grows around my neighbours front door.

Trees and Shrubs

Cherry Stella, growing on rootstock Gisela 5.  I planted this tree about a year after I moved in.  I am hoping for great things, huge crops.  It is planted in the centre of the garden widthways, and neared to the front fence.  It is the result of a memory.  A laden cherry tree in a garden in France, in Simiane la Rotunde.  As I write this I realise that the desire for a pomegranate was sparked on the same trip.  Strange.  Thought trees.

Rosmarinus officinalis, rosemary, the herb.  I planted this near the front gate.  I use it with roast lamb and in stews.

Hypericum Hidcote.  In the garden already, and kept in check with a winter hedge trimmer haircut.

Morus nigra, mulberry.  A twig as yet, but with the potential to stain the lips of many a child one day.

to be continued