There are benefits to visiting a garden on a bad day, a day when it is not at its best.
We visited David Austin Roses, at Albrighton in Shropshire, recently on a day when the rose display was not at its best. Weather conditions during this spring and early summer brought forward the season and the first flush of flowering of the roses was finishing at the time of our visit.
On previous visits we had witnessed marvellous displays with bed after bed full of varieties at their very best. This gave a good opportunity to compare one cultivar with another but arriving on a bad day, as we did, gave a different insight. This was an opportunity to see those roses which did well in a challenging season and, as it seems likely that we will have more and more seasons like this, these might well be the roses to select for the hotter and drier garden.
Here are those which looked well on the day of our visit:
Paddy Tobin, An Irish Gardener 