'Roses Made Me The Man I Am Today'

Garden peas on my grandfathers allotment because, paradoxically, wedidnt have a garden when I was a child, even though my father was a public parks foreman.

The first plant I ever grew

Garden peas on my grandfather’s allotment because, paradoxically, we didn’t have a garden when I was a child, even though my father was a public parks foreman.

The plant that shaped the man I am today

That would have to be the rose. During the last two years of my school holidays I worked on a rose nursery, tying in the newly attached buds behind the budder/grafter. A year or two later, my father and I budded the first 3,000 roses on a cousin’s nursery as he moved over from vegetable production to a much more rewarding crop. I’m now more of a shrub rose man!