Flowers - Rose
Roses are perennials, but behave differently to the other perennials in my garden. They lose their leaves in winter, but don't die back completely. This makes them more like a bush, and indeed, they are usually called rose bushes. I have included them as flowers and bushes.
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Rose garden
 Graham Thomas and Rosa Mundi during winter
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There are many different varieties and I have several in my garden, so I am splitting them up as below. Most roses have two flowerings, in early summer, and in autumn. However, old fashioned roses only flower once, in early summer. I'll specify which in their individual pages. Nearly all my roses are bush roses, but I have one climber. There are of course a range of colours, and sometimes a rose flower changes its colour with time. There are different shapes of flower. There are also floribunda roses, with large groups of mostly simpler flowers, and tea roses, with single, larger, blooms. Some roses are scented more than others.
Roses need a certain amount of care. They need pruning, and some fertiliser, to produce good blooms. This is usually done in winter. However, I've found that if I do this twice a year, after each flowering, the second flowering is much better. For fertiliser, I use bonemeal, or if I don't have any, Gromore. I don't mind using artificial fertiliser (which means I am not an organic gardener, although I don't use any weedkillers or pesticides).
Roses get diseases. We don't use pesticides in our garden becfause we like insecets. So on the whole I just leave the plants to get on with it!
Below is rose blight, black patches on roses. I prune the roses in summer, after first flowering, as well as in winter. This cuts off much of the blighted leaves. I don't know if it helps.
Various things eat roses as well. Here is a picture of sawfly caterpillars. I don't know if they do much harm, but the photo amused me!
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Rose blight
 Sawfly caterpillar
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