Roses can be the stars of a garden border, all from the humble origins of a bare-root plant
PHOTO: SARAH CUTTLE
“The fleshy roots contain enough moisture and nourishment to see the plant through its early stages of re-establishment”
It was autumn, and I was 14 years old when I planted my first bare-root rose bush on cold Yorkshire clay. How could a few sticks, with a handful of stringy roots, possibly grow into something beautiful – especially after I’d done as the local nurseryman had instructed, and chopped back those sticks to just 8cm after planting? But grow they did, and from that day on I’ve been a firm advocate of planting bare-root roses, thanks to their reasonable price and their ability to thrive. I cannot recall a single failure, which proves the wisdom of an old friend of mine who firmly believed that ‘roses grow in spite of their owners’. Of all our garden shrubs, roses are, undoubtedly, the most forgiving.