About this Project Ive
always wondered what the gardens of Rosarians looked like, and what plants they used in combination with their Roses.
A long time
before this project, I recall rather innocently asking a Rose expert - "What plants do you grow in combination with your
Roses?" "Roses" - was the gruff reply.
Call it a quest if you like, but I suggested (rather selfishly in light of
the above) a photographic tour of member gardens to Norman Beck - Rose Judge and prominent member of the Rose Society of Northern Ireland -
of which I am a member. Norman put it to the Rose Society members and the project was given the green light.
In all we visited 10
gardens What a wonderful experience. Breathtaking!
Norman and I were invited to give a presentation of our photo collection to
the October 2005 meeting of the RSNI society. We had less that half an hour to do our presentation. Needless to say, with members
questions and comments, we did not manage to make a worthy presentation.
This website will hopefully make amends for that and help
to promote the Rose Society of Northern Ireland. You'll find much more about their endeavours on the official website - administered
for many years with devotion by Norman: Rose Society of Northern Ireland
In
conclusion? To my relief, the Rosarians we visited turned out to be a lot more tolerant of other plants besides Roses! The
presentation of their collections were many and varied, from formal beds of one Rose cultivar, to mixed beds of Roses, to the informal. To
my delight, we found that one of the gardens proudly featured a truly old fashioned Cottage Garden in the traditional style (with a
spattering of Roses, of course).
In all cases, there were many other plants of interest besides Roses in each garden.
All in
all a fantastic project, and I hope you enjoy this photographic presentation of our tour.
The photos are reduced somewhat for the
web. The entire collection of original photos have been used in a database whcih can be accessed using any of my Garden Software items
(Ideas Genie, Flower Genie and Bonsai Genie) Please get in touch if you would like a copy of that database.
