Pleine de Grace -insane mistake

[campanula]

Walking about the allotment, I could help thinking 'by gum, that one is growing well'. Later , browsing at roses (naturally) I noticed the eventual size of PdG. 6metres. 6 METRES as in 20 feet! I was under the impression it would be around 4feet. Last year, I ordered from a european nursery and, in my fevered glee - all those roses not available here in the UK- I think I overlooked certain details.
Later research though, this rose is described as anything from 2.5 feet -20feet. Once flowering or continuous, slight scent or strong scent. What's going on? Are there different clones of this rose or summat? Am bewildered - anyone else growing this rose? Should I move it NOW? (It is next to a neat little burnet rose - a ridiculous pairing).

[Stefanie]

Looks like you’ve gotten yourself a ‘big girl’ there campanula.

I don’t grow her but if she is really as vigorous as you say and literature describes here may I beg for a few slips in autumn please? I would love to hide my neighbours awful and uninteresting hedge and this rose looks like it could have the potential to quickly cover the thing.

If she really is that vigorous than it might be best to either move PdG or the little burnet rose – that might be easier. Just think of the mighty root system PdG might have developed by now….

[admin]

Yep PdG will get to 20ft so it is best to move her to somewhere more appropriate before she gets established.. if you can wait until she goes dormant it will increase your chances of transferring her successfully. If you must do it now then chop her down to about 3ft and move as much soil with the rootball as you can, and water her in really well - really well.

[campanula]

Oh, i think this is going as a guerilla gift to my local cemetary. No-one will notice until it gets big and those little white hybrid musk flowers will blend well in a semi-woodland, informal municiple area - I can easily find a good patch behind the rampant brambles with enough light.....and I will get a secret thrill on my daily dogwalk. Fortunately, there is even a water standpipe for hot dogs.

[Stefanie]

Originally Posted by campanula

Oh, i think this is going as a guerilla gift to my local cemetary. No-one will notice until it gets big and those little white hybrid musk flowers will blend well in a semi-woodland, informal municiple area - I can easily find a good patch behind the rampant brambles with enough light.....and I will get a secret thrill on my daily dogwalk. Fortunately, there is even a water standpipe for hot dogs.

I love the idea campanula We should all donate our unwanted roses to cemetery’s. It's a worthy gift to all the neglected graves.

[elemire]

Originally Posted by Stefanie

I love the idea campanula We should all donate our unwanted roses to cemetery’s. It's a worthy gift to all the neglected graves.

hehe, that actually depends on a country.

In NL any of that sort of gift would not make sense, since after 20 years the graves are emptied for the new inhabitants and the old remains are burned, to save the space. So any permanent planting is pretty much doomed.

In Lithuania that is not the case at all, but there are different issue - trees and climate. Graveyards there usually are on the hills and shaded by the trees (there was a custom to plant trees on the graves even 100 years back), which makes it impossible for the roses to thrive. Add -30C in the winter in the exposed area (hill and defoliated trees) - not that many roses can survive that. The only rose that I ever saw in the old graveyards was alba maxima. Some rugosas probably could survive as well, but that is considered not a rose but a bramble in Lithuania, unfit to be planted in a holy site (not to mention that any suckering is a no go, because you have to mind the boundaries of your burial plot).

[campanula]

our local graveyard (the 'gravy') has been a neglected and largely untouched wilderness for the last 30 years. We love it and walk there every day - my waters broke (my youngest, Tas), late one snowy february night and we barely made it home before he was born. Then, disaster-----a large lottery grant of £150,000 was awarded and the (so-called) 'friends of Mill Road cemetary' sprang into life. Since then, there has been a bloody feud with 2 main camps emerging. Camp A (which I belong to, sort of, wants to maintain the graveyard as a habitat for birds, keeping the brambles and old native alders and willows, leaving the grass long in the summer (It is basically calcareous grassland and supports an array of butterflies and other insects, as well as scabious, knapweeds, yarrow etc.) Camp B wants ornamental trees such as flowering cherries (there's a tale behind that little endeavour though), neatly defined paths and worst of all, a gate kept locked at the weekends and after dark....oh, yes, 6 'artworks' planted around and a history archive on the various well-to-do families with lavish gravestones (most cambridge workers had simple family plots with no headstones apart from little stone urns). Fortunately, us 'wildies and lefties' are a persistent bunch and we may not have won every battle (artworks) but we are winning the war(especially after the ornamental planting debacle - they died!)
So yep, it is with a certain amount of glee I will be donating Pleine de Grace (good name too) as although it has not been used as a graveyard for almost 25 years since the last burial, it is still a green lung for our part of cambridge and a vital habitat for our urban beasties (including local teenagers).

[Stefanie]

Germany has pretty much the same policy elelmire described earlier. After about 25 ‘tenants’ get evicted (unless the family pays another large lump sum to the yard for another 25 years). Here in SA graves don’t get touched. There are many old family graves, some very well visible from busy roads. Most are walled or fenced in to keep life stock out and most display lovely old grave stones. As this is a large country we’re not running out of space fast, unlike some countries in Europe.

Campanula, I can almost see the grave yard you have so well described and yes, if I would live near one I would almost certainly use it for daily walks. Here is the issue of water – where there is no rain or relatives who tend the graves everything turns to dust not long after the burial. Most affluent families have a large marble plate placed over the grave. No digging stray dogs, no grazing cattle or goat damage and no maintenance either. Cemeteries that are closer to poorer communities are almost always looking messy.

Good luck with 'the war' I hope you can keep the wild look of the old cemetary

[campanula]

a few years ago, there was a spate of vandalism, with gravestones being pushed over and broken. It went on for weeks and there were many debates about keeping the gates closed. Local teenagers were also high on the suspect lists and the police were seemingly unable to do anything about it. A group of those same teenagers took it upon themselves to take turns to keep watch late at night - in a matter of days, the culprit was discovered -a disgruntled elderly resident with severe mental health problems. The gates remained open.
Of course, it is a graveyard, not a park or recreation ground but many local people use this space for meeting friends, walking dogs, even taking a shortcut between 2 large roads. My children have spent many, many hours in the gravy, climbing the enormous black pines, collecting blackberries and conkers and drinking cider and hanging out - it truly is a living community area and one we all feel must remain for the community to make use of, while still having respect for the original purpose.