Hello dear rose friends … another week of very little rain here in North/Central Victoria – exactly 2mm and the garden is gasping. This is the sort of weather when we are truly pleased that we grow roses because they just love the Summer heat and they all look sensational just to prove the point!
We had some really beaut email responses to the Rose Rambler from last week – lots of snake and spider stories and this is a spider one:
“Hi Diana, big thanks for your email – I have been laughing all day! And now, just a couple of thoughts for you about your voyeur huntsman……. . I am sure that you know that flies have those eyes with many, many facets and see everything multiple times at once ………. huntsman do too ……… so now, just think what that huntsman is looking at …….. ! I have a theory that huntsmen are telepathic – that they see things and ‘beam’ the image to all other huntsman within a 20k radius ………… now think about just how many huntsman have seen the same image ………. . Wow, that is ……….. scary!”
Two days after my episode with the huntsman, he was there checking Graham out – who needs medical examination when you have a resident huntsman? He’s back in the garden where he belongs!!
Just to confirm to the women who read this, men really are ‘different’ … here’s another funny man story about how to deal with snakes:
“GreetingsDiana,
Thanks for your Rose Rambler. Just thought we would let you know that years ago we had a snake under the building of a youth camp in Halls Gap. The solution was to place a saucer of milk near where the snake went in. When the sun warmed the milk the snake sensed the smell and came out to it. It worked! The idea was to lean out the window above and drop rocks on the snake – but that didn’t work quite as well. Cheers from us both ..”
Really valuable information and the end of the snake and spider stories – we’ll get serious now and talk about the garden!
TALKING ROSES … Do you walk around your garden, see a particularly glorious rose and give it a name or have a chat with it? Very often, when I drive in the gate I find myself smiling because I’m sure that the rose “Guy Savoy” is smiling at me … it is my happy-smiley rose. When I walk past “Abraham Darby” on the little summer house it begs me to stop and take a really good look and especially to revel in the delightful fragrance. And “Duet” demands my attention – her dark pink colour is so intensely different to any other rose and her waved petals pose a sense of frivolous sexiness … yeah, she’s really sexy!
Because I am in the process of compiling an encyclopaedia of roses I would love it if you could give me your ‘talk’ on any roses in your garden and I will add them to the description in the encyclopaedia. What are your roses telling you about themselves? Is what they’re telling you a reflection of your mood? Are some roses distinctly feminine while others are definitely masculine? Would you change the name of a rose because it reflects certain traits? Your input and feedback will be invaluable and probably lots of fun too!!!
ROSE OF THE WEEK … I’ve chosen “FRIESIA” as the queen of the garden and pots too! Her (see, I sex them when I speak about them!) clear, crisp, lemon-yellow buds open with such magnificent fragrance to display lovely red stamens which the bees just cannot get enough of – she’s really cooling and refreshing to visit and her dark green, serrated foliage is a wonderful foil for the masses of flowers she produces so abundantly! Lovely size too … rather slender about 90cms wide and 1.2mt tall.
In closing … Only one week to GO – remember to come along and see the debut of ‘Pearly Petals’ at the GO Festival at Royal Exhibition Buildings, Carlton on 16th and 17th February – only a few FREE PASSES still available so let me know quickly if you would like one of those! Have a great week – stay cool …
Cheers from Diana & Graham Sargeant at Silkies Rose Farm, Clonbinane.