Sue Wheeler with Elizabeth Sawday

Elizabeth Sawday from Apuldram Roses gave the Grayshott Gardeners a very informative talk on 10 September.

 Apuldram Nursery was set up by Diane Sawday in 1979 and Elizabeth and her husband Jonathan have run it for over 30 years.  Their nursery is based in Chichester West Sussex where you will find hundreds of different varieties of roses and they run various seasonal courses on growing roses, pruning and propagating.  Their roses have been exhibited at national rose shows and have won medals at Hampton Court Flower Show.

Elizabeth described the difference between the various types of roses covering the Hybrid Tea, Floribunda, Climbers, Ramblers, Shrub and Ground Cover. Good advice was given on pruning and Elizabeth recommended that Burton & McColl secateurs, although expensive, were the best.

Elizabeth stressed the importance of feeding roses especially as they can flower from May until the first frost. Increased feeding will keep black spot at bay, Suphur Rose is ideal and do not use Tomorite as this is too strong.  Alphids should be sprayed with water and not soapy water as the soap will dry out the leaves.

Elizabeth pointed out the way in which to tell who cultivated the rose by the letters under the name of the rose on the label, i.e. fry which is Fryers in Cheshire.

The evening ended with an ‘abundance’ of questions.