Spring Romance

It’s still very daffodilly everywhere, but now my heart starts to beat ever so slightly faster as I notice the roses - the roses - throwing out strong elegant shoots and starting to form flower buds. The thrill of it. First to flower at both Stokesay and Downton is the tiny flowered double yellow banksia rose, which scrambles merrily up our high walls and then tumbles down again in a foamy cascade of bloom, providing we have been restrained enough not to over-pick it in the previous year. This is followed a few days later by the double white kind. Then, all of a sudden, there will be a riot of pale pink Cecile Brunner, creamy yellow Alistair Stella Grey and primrose-coloured Malvern Hills, while thorny Snowdon makes lovely white tissue paper blooms spread across its prickly branches. But I am getting ahead of myself. Right now the only other rose doing proper flowers for us is Maigold, flowering high up on the sunny South-facing wall of our house, encircling the office window as I type, and wreathed about with honeysuckle. I love this stiffly romantic, full-of-promise time of year.