White Roses are not the only flowers I grow, quite to the contrary but White Roses are the best for obvious reasons. A lot of so called white roses are in fact cream or faintly tinged with pink, even the variety called  ‘White Rose of York’.  Madame Hardy above or the singles Ruga rosa Alba or Henry Hudson would suit Yorkshire tastes better and Iceberg is a clear white winner.

A great Yorkshire gardener and rose fanatic Geoffrey Smith saddly died this year and I can’t find a rose dedicated to him. Alan Titchmarsh however has a ‘Shocking Pink ‘ rose to his name but the 10 suppliers I tracked down were all outside the county. Still Alan is one of our famous exports and is now an expat living in the south of England.

This white begonia was raised in Harrogate and similar blooms will be on show at the  Harrogate Autumn Flower Show 18th-20th September 2009. Just a couple of unusual societies who will be present are the Streptocarpus and Hosta/Hemerocallis societies.

When God was handing out noses the Lancashire lad asked for a big red one because he thought he said roses – seems he ended
up with both.