Sunday, May 27, 2007

A hedge of historical roses

Since the moment when I saw the first historical rose, I have been overwhelmed by their beauty. Hungarian nurseries, of course, have never even heard of them.

The greatest benefit of the accession of Hungary to the European Union was to me that since then we have been able to import plants without any restriction. And when God gives a pot, then He also gives the rabbit to be cooked in it. Soon after the accession I found the nursery of Peter Beales in England which has, I guess, the largest assortment of historical roses in all the world, and the oldest German rose nursery, Rosen von Schultheis, which has an especially large collection of the same roses.

My only problem left was where to plant these roses. They usually only bloom two or three weeks at the beginning of the summer. Some of them produce rose-hips, but most of them – and just those with the most exciting wine-colored flowers – do not, and thus in the rest of the year they are not that beautiful. After long considerations I have invented Spanish wax. I have not planted them in the garden, but – encouraged by what I had read about their resistant nature – on the street, along our fence. (Much later I discovered that this is how they were traditionally treated: they were always planted in a separate part in the garden.)

In this year our hedge of historical roses already bloomed in full glamor.

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