Both were well reviewed and both won international prizes. One of them was translated into seven languages and, rather more importantly for an author, still earns welcome royalties. The international editions were pre-sold at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which meant that I had to include roses in all the markets where the book would be published. Rose lovers are famously nationalistic-it is difficult to persuade Frenchmen that some of the best roses are bred by Englishmen-and so, with the backing of a generous advance, I set off to study and write about roses all over the world.
My travels took me on my first visit to Australia, where I was surprised to discover that roses grow much better than anywhere else. The heat means that the bushes grow taller and more vigorously than they do back home, and the dry climate keeps them free from mildew and blackspot. By the time I had finished writing the book, I had realised that, in the English climate, many roses are at the limits of their cultivability. Yes, we have gardens where roses are very well grown-three that I greatly admire are Queen Mary's rose garden in Regent's Park in London, David Austin's show garden near Wolverhampton and the National Trust's collection of roses assembled by Graham Stuart Thomas at Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire. But once you have seen the roses at Werribee near Melbourne or the plants in every suburban garden in Adelaide, you have to concede that rose-growing is something that the Aussies do better than us.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 08, 2023-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 08, 2023-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
