Ramblers' association

Relief at the progress of his rose cuttings prompts Toby to make plans for the future of his vigorous ramblers

- Toby Buckland

THE tulips look stunning and the tidy ranks of vegetables in the kitchen garden are quite literally food for the eye, but if I had a favourite spring sight it would be the embryonic roots of my rose cuttings reaching through the drainage holes in their pots.

Part of the joy is relief… I took the hardwood cuttings just as February melted into March, which is late for this type of propagation. As if that were not risky enough, I’d also boasted about my endeavours on the pages of AG.

I’m not a superstitious man, nor one to catastrophise, but overconfidence brings bad juju. And as the weeks post striking ticked by, I worried that my sleeping beauties would never wake or be caught up in a freak accident involving a runaway steamroller. But here they are, ready for separating into pots of their own.