Hitching Post Climbing Roses

The Stables garden was dug around a hitching rail for horses. I left the post and rail in place and grew some climbing roses along it - the pink Bantry Bay and an unknown amber yellow which I thought (wrongly) was Windrush. They are still there, all these years later. But that's roses for you!

Bantry Bay was the first rose I trained along the Stables hitching rail. It's a cheerful climber, but can misbehave with black spot later in the season.

Then a new honey yellow rose which I thought was called Windrush joined the pink climber Bantry Bay. I've since learnt that I have given this lovely rose quite the wrong name. Oops. The plantings underneath, too, have changed, and several shrubs have barged in to take up space.

In the rose off-season the hitching rail is camouflaged well by a beautiful Phormium and the scruffiest of Lavenders, plus some far-reaching bronze fennel.

Here's an early photograph, taken in 1998. In this picture the variegated Elm tree (in the background, mid-border) is rather small and new.