Phase 3 Rose Planting

 After lots of hard digging to prepare four large beds for replanting, the Friends gathered in the Rose Garden on Saturday 19th March 2016. All the new bare root roses had been delivered the day before and the weather was ideal. After a dry week the soil was much more pleasant for the task  of replanting up the four rose beds. The roses going in this time were orange roses called Fellowship and white roses called Pride and Prejudice. Also some white roses called Silver 25th Anniversary.



The scouts and other youth groups had prior engagements so it was a real team effort to get all the roses planted. We worked hard and by 11.15 am the first bed was completed. After a short tea break, we cracked on and managed to plant up two more beds before stopping for a late lunch.

Here in the picture on the right  you can see our refreshment table . Some of us used wheelbarrows to pile mushroom compost onto the beds prior to planting, others assisted greatly by dipping the bare root roses in a Miccorrhyzal  
solution before passing them to the diggers as soon as a hole was ready. All this team effort meant quite an efficient system and all four new beds were finished by 3.15pm.




We still had some orange roses spare so decided to plant them in another bed of orange/red roses where there were lots of gaps. Although we were starting to tire, we carried on and all the bare root roses were in the ground by 4.30pm.

Many passers by spoke to us as we worked. One couple joined the Friends group and another young girl walking through handed us a £10 donation towards our Rose Appeal.