Coming up roses

When I was 10 my dad bought me a pony. Before you assume I was seriously spoiled by an overindulgent father with more money than sense, let me add that it was on the understanding I would feed, water and look after the pony with no input whatsoever from adults.
This meant walking 3km to and from the pony paddock twice a day carrying a bucket of chaff and an armful of lucerne, even when it was raining and when the temperature was below zero. My father was frightened of horses and had no intention of getting up close and personal with mine, and my mother was already busy looking after the homeless kittens dad had brought home in his pocket.
I was spared the trek at weekends when the pony was allowed to stay in an enclosure at the bottom of our large section.
It took only a few weekends for him to figure out he could slip under the fence and have free range in my mother's garden, where the pickings were far more attractive than chaff and lucerne. The day he discovered roses marked the end of his weekend visits.
In more recent times I, too, have discovered roses, although I am disinclined to eat them. I was seduced by them during a visit to Central Otago, which reminded me that there's really nothing quite as gorgeous as a real rose garden.
I'll never have a serious rose garden as long as I live in the sub-tropical Far North, because I find it difficult enough to nurture the plants that do want to live here, much less those than don't.
But I think I might be going to dabble in roses them just a little bit. It's probably a sign that I've become an occasional visitor to the Trade Me message board gardening section: Why did my silk tree split in half and fall over ... What went wrong with my garlic ... And why does a garden retailer get away with advertising a kink-free hose when it patently isn't?.
Most threads have between 10 and 20 posts, but the rose thread had, at last visit, well over 1100. I told myself I'd just spend a minute looking, but an hour later I was feverishly taking notes and looking up images of roses with the unlikely names of Jude the Obscure and Crepuscule.
A post asking growers to name their favourites for the coming season was enough to inspire anyone. How could you resist, for example, this description: "I love Cecile Brunner and Blanc Double de Coubert because they flower for ages, Mme Hardy because for the four months she flowers she is just heavenly (she's a witch with warts the other eight months) and the rest of them for a zillion reasons - at this point mostly potential."
And: "I have grown old-fashioned roses and Austin roses for over 20 years now, and still fall in love with them every year. Jolly hard to pick a favourite rose as they all have their own particular charm. I have several Crepuscule, one that is underplanted with a deep purple hybrid clematis. The two fight it out every year and the colour combination is just stunning."
Rose growers are a different breed from other gardeners. They're knowledgeable, dedicated and full of useful information.
As well as information on where to buy for both quality and economy (many swear by their supermarket), how to find obscure roses, which ones are foolproof and which are difficult, and how to design underplanting that will showcase the blooms, they talk about what to feed, how to prune, how to propagate and what to use to keep pests at bay.
You'll get plenty of basic information at other websites too.
At www.kings.co.nz you'll find out where to plant, what to do to the soil, how to plant, how to feed, how to water, when and how to prune, when and what to spray, plus a month-by-month guide of what to do for your roses.
The fact that there is such a guide is a hint that you can't just chuck 'em in and forget 'em.
There's more good stuff at www.bestgardening.com and a really useful index of articles, images and links to still more rose sites at www.netlist.co.nz
But possibly the best way to find out whatever you want to know is to ask a rose gardener. Just walk along the street until you find a stunning rose garden, and you can practically guarantee he or she will be working in it