Plant of the week - Miniature rose

A bit of catching up to do with my 'plant of the week' posts - the photos were taken but the posts never made it to being published!

Plant of the week for 17th October is this tiny miniature rose. I can't remember the name of the rose, but it was bought for me by my good friend Sonia. As it's a miniature rose, I planted it at the bottom of the rose arch so that the red flowers would be visible as its base as you walk through the arch. Unfortunately the herbaceous perennials around it overtook it and crowded it out and it was lost.

Miniature rose

It finally got it chance in mid-October after all the other plants had died down, a proliferation of tiny buds appeared - these were the only flowers in my garden this week. Sadly the buds didn't open fully - maybe it was too cold or just too late in the season.

Plant of the week - Rose 'Patricia'

I prefer rambling old-fashioned style roses as a rule, but this rose has a special meaning in our house.

The colours really are amazing as you can see from this photo. The blooms are intensely salmon-pink, almost red in the bud, and as they open they show an array of hues from lemon yellow, peach, salmon and fading into a delicate pale pink.

Added to that they smell absolutely delicious!

Floribunda rose - 'Patricia' - blooms half-open

It's a hardy floribunda rose, mine's in a pot and stays outside over winter and has always survived well. Like all roses its prone to the odd outbreak of greenfly, but this year I have been careful not to overwater or overfeed (which encourages rapid growth of soft tasty shoots that greenfly love) and I haven't seem any greenfly on it so far. Maybe the exceptionally dry weather has helped.

Floribunda rose - 'Patricia' - blooms fully open

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has some organic tips for dealing with greenfly. I've heard that introducing ladybird larvae can help but if anyone has tried this and can recommend I'd love to hear about it.

I bought my potted rose about five years ago from Country Garden Roses.