"0tterbot" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message

:-)) If I had a loathing for every nasty incident that happened to me in
my childhood, I'd never have chooks or a garden or go near dogs, cats,
cattle, pushbikes or horses.

yeah, i know. i decided to just limit my neurosis to roses though ;-)
having said that, they seem to leap out at me whenever i pass the damn
things. my bike accident was truly spectacular, but now roses just harrass
me in tiny ways. g

I have a particular loathing for tulips. If anyone asks me why, I say
because they are stiff and formal but then I love all of the narcissus
family so there is absolutely no logic at all in my reaction to tulips
because daffs etc are all similar to tulips.

tbh, i don't think it's "roses" as a concept i detest exactly - it's more
that i share cranky old clive blazey's opinion that the hybrid picking
roses are over-large (but mostly quite lovely) flowers growing on truly,
genuinely, unattractive bushes.

I'd agree with that to some extent. Hybrid teas are very like that.
Perhaps it is more a matter of needing to know more about the huge family of
roses to find the right ones. Peirre de Ronsard has got to be one of my all
time favourites and it has huge heads if weel grown and the heads can often
droop, but not if they are well grown. I can't seem to grow them well, but
I keep trying to get them to lift their heads.

whereas the old roses are just gorgeous,
bushes & all. kwim? (i'm a kind of wholistic gardener - if it looks crap 8
months of the year, i don't really want it ;-)

Yeah. I no longer grow any roses that aren't recurrant flowerers.

I've also been told that I shouldn't prune roses (or weed near them)
because of the risk of infection (caused by thorns) that they apparently
pose to someone such as myself for one of the types of cancers I have
survived. I ignore that last piece of advice. If the cancers didn't
kill me, then my number just isn't up yet and even if my ignorance of
such advice does result in death, well so what? We all have to die of
something.

:-)) that's a great attitude. my grandfather was a market gardener in the
heady days of ddt & my mum (who must have got it all over herself multiple
times) kind of thinks the same thing (about how it's probably in all our
dna now like a time bomb... argh!)

Hmmm. I think I spoke too soon. I am now very carefully watching a finger
and wondering if I should take it to the doctor for some antibiotics. Hit a
thorn din' I!!!

but yes. if you love your roses, i should think you get more value from
loving them & caring for them than worrying about what "might" happen. :-)

having said that, we do have a lovely pale-yellow (thornless!!!!)
climber here & it's just beautiful. i'm pretty sure i've seen dorothy
perkins & it is beautiful too. old-fashioned climbing and banking roses
really are lovely provided i don't have to go near them. sigh!!

Most roses are lovely if they are in the right setting and are the right
colour and if they have perfume (I don't like roses with no perfume). I
think the same could probably said for most flowering plants.

that's very true. i was talking with someone recently who wants to convert
his old garden into all-native, & i DID say, keep your roses for now while
you're still thinking about it all, not least because they're tough &
easy. all plants have their place, in the right place. roses have a lot
going for them.

Yes. I have seen many long abandoned old cottages whihc still have roses
growing in an otherwise cattle eaten and dessimated garden. I like such
survival plants.