Of hedges and roses

I spent the morning finishing cutting the hedge - a job started a fortnight ago. Since then it's been rainy - april showers - but finally we had a nice sunny morning and I had the urge and the energy and (perhaps) the time to be in the garden. 

The hedge on the far side is done as far as I could reach from the ladder - it's high and it's wide. Both privet hedges are showing signs of "wilt", a fungal infection (verticillium). Seems that all you can do about it is use nitrogen-rich fertiliser to try to help give the hedge some strength so it can fight back.

Those eyesores, the bins, are clustered ready and waiting - tomorrow is bin day (recycling and garden bin get emptied every week, general waste every other week). The garden bin, which lives in the back and has to be wheeled down the long hallways, is completely full this week; I like to do a little weeding or pruning first thing in the morning, and it soon mounts up.

June is the month for roses ...

Low-growing rose in the front; prolific this year

The orange rambler, planted recently, has a ways to go before it reaches rambling height

Planted by a previous owner of the house, this very fragrant, very red rose
 is  in the wrong place, beside the far hedge

Moving to the back garden, here's Kifsgate, rambling along fence and trellis, just opened in the past few days

Rosa glauca, grown from a cutting obtained north of Oxford in the late 90s

One of the "original" roses, planted by a previous owner, more than 40 years ago