On my 21st birthday, a group of my friends at university clubbed together and bought me a standard rose bush. They also bought a square of turf, which they laid in the paved back garden of our student house, and placed the rose, in a pot, on top, before covering the garden with embarrassing photos of me and inviting everyone around for a barbecue.
Of course, the turf diedwithin a couple of weeks, but four years later the rose bush is still going strong. As soon as I moved to a garden of my own, I planted it out, and you could almost see the plant jumping for joy at being able to wriggle its roots out into the lovely soil around it. I love this rose, not because it is rare or because garden geeks get excited about it, but because it reminds me of some very dear, very funny friends.
Standard roses do need a little more care, though. The ‘Silver Anniversary’ part is actually only at the top of the plant, grafted as it is onto a strong trunk of Rosa rugosa. This makes it a beefy, strong plant, but grafts do bring their own problems.
R.rugosa is much, much stronger than the hybrid rose that it supports. This means it is always finding new ways to break free from its supporting role and go solo. I am forever digging up suckers thrown out from the base of the plant, and cutting off young, thorny rugosa growth from the trunk as well. One of the ways of keeping this rather irritating sideshow to a minimum is to make sure that you do not mulch right up to the trunk, as this will encourage suckering into the mulch. Suckering is bad, not just because it looks messy, but also because it takes energy away from the flowers on the bush.
I also make sure that I give my standard rose a jolly good feed at the start of the year, as well as regular top-ups with comfrey tea as the season goes on. I remove any leaves that have nasty black spots on them before the fungal infection spreads and weakens the plant.
And the most important thing to keeping a healthy and floriferous rose? A good prune at the start of the year to keep it in shape and encourage bushy, healthy growth.
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