Pruning the roses in the front garden.

The roses in summer.

After a wet week today has been one of those lovely, sunny winter days where it has been warmer outside than inside. I decided that I had better get on with pruning the rose bushes in my front garden. I always like to get the three bushes there and the three in the back garden pruned by the end of July but as July is often one of our wettest months it doesn’t always happen.

I don’t always enjoy the job, the bushes are thorny, the ground is muddy and I am short so it is not easy to reach the tops of them. For that reason I like to cut them back fairly severely every year. If I let them get too tall I’d never be able to prune them.

I did two today before I had enough. It took a couple of hours. I could have done one more but instead had a walk round the garden to see what bulbs were coming up. I have had jonquils flowering since May, silly things don’t know it’s winter. I can see the Erlicheer daffodils and the King Alfred are growing well and we’ll probably see them next month.

I planted a few bluebells and grape hyacinths under the apple tree and I can see a few of them have popped up although they are still too tiny to photograph well.

I planted some pots of bulbs in mid May and of those the one with freesias and bluebells is making the best progress, another one with more freesias and grape hyacinths is starting to sprout but no sign of the tulips yet. I never have a lot of luck with them but they do bloom later here so maybe it is just too soon.

I had a look at the new rose bushes that were put in last summer but they only needed a snip here and there. They are still babies.

Finally I sat in the sun and ate my belated lunch and then brushed Cindy who is shedding like crazy at the moment.