Edition 8th May, 2025

9th May 2025

HELLO DEAR ROSE FRIENDS ...

Despite very cold night temperatures, our roses are still carrying lots of foliage and buds which may open during warm sunny days. The gardens are magnificent but we’re noticing dry spots in recently planted garden beds so we’re turning the taps on … thank goodness we have town water and the bore as back-up!

There’s definitely powdery mildew on some varieties of potted roses and soon enough, most of the roses will incur blackspot as this is the mechanism for them to shut down and enjoy some time-out … we’re happy about this as we can now take some time-out too!

As mentioned previously, we won’t be offering bare-rooted roses this winter but our online store remains open to enable you to purchase potted roses – over the years, it’s been our experience that some gardeners prefer to have their roses delivered as potted specimens rather than winter-dormant bare-rooted plants.

By mid-late July we’ll have an extensive suite of all varieties available again and, there’s a great new website in the making too!

LICHEN ON A 60 YEAR-OLD ROSE …

We received this email last week and it’s worth sharing …

Hello,

I’m just wondering whether having lichen on your rose affects this rose bush which is over 60 years old. It flowers really well each year , I have attached a photo.

Regards,
Patricia

MY RESPONSE:

Hi Patricia … because you mention that the rose is flowering prolifically despite being over 60 years old, the only thing I suggest is to take a pronged fork and press it into the soil, give it a good ‘wriggle’ well-wide of the main stem (understock). Then, apply liquid seaweed with added liquid fertilizer – Fair Dinkum Seaweed Gold and Bloom Boom are a great combo of seaweed and fertilizer for this project – at least once a week for a few weeks as we’ve still got warm days so the plant will uptake this TLC ..

Because we’re almost ready to do winter pruning, I would suggest that you take just one of the ‘old’ branches out this winter – select one which looks balanced – then, coming summer or the following winter, remove another one of those old branches – with extra TLC and fertilizer, this rose just might produce lovely new watershoots and re-establish itself …

Meantime, don’t hesitate to take some cuttings of flowering branches so that you have this beauty in posterity! Best wishes and we would love to know how this goes …

Gra

For a giggle

Q: What runs but has no legs?

A: A tap!

JUST BEAUTIFUL ...

We’ve received many emails like this one …

God bless you guys in this new phase of your journey. May the coming years see you find even greater joy in doing what you love, as you have been a source of joy to thousands of us!

I'll look forward to your new website.

Regards,
Imelda

And visitors are wishing us well for our future – we are so very grateful but please also know that we’re not going anywhere in the short term and will continue to connect with you through this Rose Rambler.

Stay posted as we’ll offer pruning demonstrations this winter too!

Meantime, may all the Mums, Omas, Grannys, Grandmas, Nannas, Nonnas and gorgeous ladies who deserve to celebrate, enjoy this coming Sunday, Mother’s Day in Australia!

If you’re out and about do stop in at Silkies Rose Farm, Clonbinane to enjoy wandering in the garden and visit the trees in their autumn splendour and sniff the last of our roses for this season.

Have another giggle

Q: What do you call a mother with bread on her lap?

A: A crumby mummy!

Remember this too on Sunday …

Cheers from all of us here at our little piece of paradise at Clonbinane …