Resuscitating ramblers

A scuffle with a JCB leaves a rambler in tatters, but luckily Toby can save the day by making some hardwood cuttings

- Toby Buckland

OIL and water, Meghan and the Royals, and… err, bath tubs and toasters: some things just don’t mix. And the same is true of builders and plants.

When I heard the rumble of heavy machinery inside the old walled kitchen garden where I work, I knew there would be trouble. And sure enough, there it was, the garden equivalent of Kryptonite – a builder in a digger, clawing at the soil.

His job was to level the paths, but being keen to ‘tidy’ the place up, he had also scraped the beds where, a year ago, I’d lovingly planted a row of rambling roses to clamber over the walls. And now, here they were – gone into the bucket of a JCB.

I couldn’t really blame the driver (although I did), as from up in his cab the wiry briars looked like brambles, but what I could do was administer CPR and replant the roots back in the soil.

Ramblers have iron-clad constitutions and, if pruned hard and kept watered, they’ll bounce back from almost any rough treatment. And dibbers crossed, there’s also life left in the bundle of snapped stems.