Resuscitating ramblers
Amateur Gardening|March 06, 2021
A scuffle with a JCB leaves a rambler in tatters, but luckily Toby can save the day by making some hardwood cuttings
Toby Buckland
Resuscitating ramblers

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.

This story is from the March 06, 2021 edition of Amateur Gardening.

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This story is from the March 06, 2021 edition of Amateur Gardening.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.