I feel a small sense of guilt and shame to say that the Rosa Banksiae Lutea rose arrived last week. It is a replacement to the one that died earlier this year (shame – I killed a plant!). I received that one in mid-March and wrote about it here.

The original rose was never happy. My plan was to wind it round the Wisteria, I thought the colour combination of Wisteria purple with light yellow rose would look lovely. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans and several months of rain, cold temperatures and dim light finished it off.

I feel awful when I see plants that I’ve bought die – it’s the cost mainly, but also the lost effort in purchase, preparation, planting and care. In this case it was neither the fault of the nursery or myself. I’m more confident now about getting back to nurseries and asking for advice and replacements if plants have died. I’ve not come across one that has blankly refused but I honestly don’t have plants die on me all the time so it is rare! In this particular instance, the nursery was kind enough to send me a replacement rose so in turn I’ll make sure they’re on my supplier short list when it comes to plants in the future.

I’m keeping the new rose in its pot for a while until I’m certain the weather isn’t going to nose-dive and kill this new one. I’m going to take the dead one out and put the new one in its place. I’ll be paying attention to the drainage as I’m guessing it was the wet weather that finished off the first one. I’ll also make sure to protect it over the coming winter as it’s one of those plants that starts tender but becomes hardier the older and more established it gets.

I’m going to be extra careful with this second one as I’m not sure I could stomach writing back to the nursery asking if they could send out another.