Roses
Posted: November 8th, 2012, 4:28 pm
There's been a bit of discussion about roses as bonsai - here are two. I've been assured that they're "not bonsai" but going on what Kobayashi and Murata have shown in their books, I think that the Japanese may be a bit less rule-defined than we are. There are certainly problems with traditional forms using roses.
This one is "Crepuscule" , a Noisette climber. It originally grew over the back of my first house. There are certainly some fine textures and shapes to be had in a good old stump. But the flowers develop at the end of a (longish) burst of growth, so form is always going to be a bit dodgy. The next one I think is a root-stock gone feral. Intensely coloured flowers, and another good base, but once again, no structure between the two, and a long run before the flowers develop. It depends what you want - if you have to have a formal rigid structure, done by the rules, then roses aren't for you. They can have some great features that make growing them worth the effort. They need a long time in the ground, with lots of hard cutting back, before they'll make a good stump.
Gavin
This one is "Crepuscule" , a Noisette climber. It originally grew over the back of my first house. There are certainly some fine textures and shapes to be had in a good old stump. But the flowers develop at the end of a (longish) burst of growth, so form is always going to be a bit dodgy. The next one I think is a root-stock gone feral. Intensely coloured flowers, and another good base, but once again, no structure between the two, and a long run before the flowers develop. It depends what you want - if you have to have a formal rigid structure, done by the rules, then roses aren't for you. They can have some great features that make growing them worth the effort. They need a long time in the ground, with lots of hard cutting back, before they'll make a good stump.
Gavin
