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The Claire Byrne Show

Gardening: The best roses for your garfdening

17 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

1.87 - 6.237 Claire Byrne

The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.

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9.782 - 21.32 Clare Byrne

The sun is finally out again. And to make your garden feel as impressive as possible, why not add some roses? And I'm joined by gardener Mary Staunton. Mary, so many questions have come in on this since I mentioned it this morning.

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21.38 - 40.777 Marie Staunton

People love the roses. Everybody loves roses. And the amount of texts I've got, never mind anything else, it's one of those things. And it's a really good year for roses. We've got a lot of water and they're coming into... And we didn't really get a really bad winter, so they're looking their best now. So it's kind of finding the best rose for your garden, really.

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41.518 - 48.093 Marie Staunton

If you've got a small garden and want kind of a climbing rose, I put up an Instagram yesterday of Rosa Phyllis Bide.

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48.193 - 55.488 Clare Byrne

I watched that and I thought... They didn't really look like the traditional rose. They're slightly different, aren't they?

55.548 - 79.269 Marie Staunton

They're not like very, you know, rosy in your face. Yeah, in your face roses. So if you're looking for one that's like the hybrid teas. So there's different types of roses, hybrid teas. And they would be in a shrub border. And they're the ones that are good for cut flowers. So they're the ones that one bloom grows on a stem and it's really easy to take off. And then you put that in your vase.

79.67 - 85.096 Marie Staunton

And then there's floribunda, which have a number of a cluster of flowers on a stem.

85.336 - 85.857 Clare Byrne

They're beautiful.

85.917 - 100.135 Marie Staunton

Look at the picture up here. Stunning, stunning, stunning. And then you have grandiflora, which is a mix between the floribunda and the hybrid tea. So that kind of gives you an in your face rose that you kind of the neighbours would be jealous of. But lots of them. Do you know what I mean? So there's a difference.

Chapter 2: What are the best types of roses for small gardens?

109.302 - 118.193 Marie Staunton

No. Roses are, they always say, let your worst enemies at your roses. And that's actually the truth. People forget or are worried about pruning them back.

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Chapter 3: How do I choose the right rose for my garden conditions?

118.233 - 138.754 Marie Staunton

So in February time, you'll see them in the garden centres in February and they have, they're like about kind of 30 centimetres in the pots, only tiny, just a few sticks. That's all they look like. So if you kind of continued in that vein and did that with your hybrid teas and all your roses, except for maybe rambling rose and climbing rose plants, But cut them back properly.

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138.855 - 153.092 Marie Staunton

And the idea is to have it open. Cut the devil out of them. Cut the devil out of them. Exactly. My mother and father used to have a rose or they still do have a rose on the front of their house 60 years. And whenever they went away, I used to cut it back to the butt. Absolutely. And then they were gone. Yeah. And they come back and they'd be horrified.

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153.132 - 172.639 Marie Staunton

And then it would flower beautifully for the summer. So the roses like to be pruned back. They also like heavy feed of manure or something like that at the beginning of the season. Don't go too close up to the, you know, the stems, but just a heavy feed of manure, really good rotten manure. And that will stand them in good stead for blooming.

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172.779 - 193.33 Marie Staunton

If you don't give, you know, feed to roses, then you're not going to get as many flowers. So why don't you go right up to the stem with the feed? Might burn the... It depends on... Well-rotted manure has no smell. So if you buy manure and it has a smell, then it's not well-rotted. So it has to be about five years old. That's why... Generally speaking, you buy them in bags.

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194.112 - 196.416 Clare Byrne

Can you get that in garden centres? You can, yeah.

196.436 - 199.161 Marie Staunton

And it's not smelly? No, it's not smelly at all. That's good.

199.662 - 201.645 Clare Byrne

A listener says, can you still get carpet rose?

202.166 - 219.524 Marie Staunton

You can, of course. You know, there are little patio roses, carpet roses. They're front of border. They will cover kind of an area and they never really stop flowering. And then the great thing is you can go at them with a shears. That's what I really like. So you're cutting them back. So everything else kind of has to, you're using a secateurs or loppers.

219.945 - 227.948 Marie Staunton

But with patio rows or carpet rows, you're just going at them with a shears at the end of the season. They'd suit me now, wouldn't they? Oh, absolutely. That's so you. That's so you.

Chapter 4: What care do roses actually need?

273.765 - 289.836 Marie Staunton

Every year. And also you'd want to be putting in a couple of shovelfuls of your own soil from your garden, because in that there's these beetles that eat the vine weevil. So if you can mix that in, that helps with the vine weevil. Otherwise, you're going to be having to use a chemical in it as well.

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289.876 - 292.862 Clare Byrne

So don't use all compost. No, no, definitely not.

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292.882 - 309.133 Marie Staunton

It has to be a really heavy mix for roses. When you think about it, it's going to get, you know, weighty. If it's going to be on a fence and it's in a pot, it's going to be getting weighty as in, you know, we get a lot of wind and that sort of thing. So you need a good, it's ballast, you need a good pot, heavy stuff in it.

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309.113 - 313.901 Clare Byrne

Paul wants to know, is peat-free compost better, not just for roses, but in general for gardening?

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314.362 - 333.113 Marie Staunton

It's better for the environment, but it's certainly the new compost, unless you're adding in mixes of your own, like more grit, more homemade compost and stuff like that, they tend to dry out really fast. So you can use the water crystals as well to keep it hydrated. It tends to dry out much quicker.

333.093 - 341.41 Marie Staunton

Back to my point again about adding in some soil from your garden, your own compost into that mix as well so that you have a good balance and a bit of feed as well.

Chapter 5: How can I effectively prune my roses?

341.891 - 344.256 Clare Byrne

What's your favourite rose, Mari? Do you have one?

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345.058 - 367.719 Marie Staunton

My favourite rose, I saw it when I was up in Antrim there recently and it's called Rosa Remember Me. And it's just the most beautiful. I've never seen anything like it. And it's just perfect. You know when a rose is just perfect. But I do have a grower for Dublin Bay rose. The colour, you know, it's just, you can see it for miles. What colour is it? Red. Just a really strong crimson. Pure red.

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367.819 - 373.369 Marie Staunton

And it's gorgeous as a climbing rose on a house, you know, on a south-facing position or west-facing.

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373.429 - 386.269 Clare Byrne

It's just glorious. Okay, back to some questions. These are more general, right? Some large thistle weeds that grow up between my hedges. Is there any way to kill off the weeds without killing the bushes?

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387.651 - 403.776 Marie Staunton

Difficult enough. There are organic kind of weed killers now that you can put on. If you get them early, you know, if you get... these things early, you can pull them out because they start off very small and then they end up like triffids before you know where you are. It's like, look, where did that come from? So you have to try and get it early.

403.816 - 420.12 Marie Staunton

But yes, it means systemic herbicides work like that. When you spray them onto the leaf, and I shouldn't even be promoting herbicides really, when you spray it on the leaf, the leaf takes it in and then kills it from the root. So it takes it in through a growing leaf and then kills the root. So

420.1 - 432.057 Marie Staunton

If you are spraying, there are organic sprays that you can use as well and they don't kill animals and everything else, but they do eventually kill, go down through the root system and kill it. Better though to just pull it out?

432.238 - 432.638 Clare Byrne

Pull it out.

432.779 - 437.045 Marie Staunton

With the good gloves? With the leather gloves. Leather gloves. I'm very sorry. Forget that.

Chapter 6: What is the best way to feed roses for optimal growth?

443.32 - 457.14 Marie Staunton

You see, back to again, you can use pest control, but they do affect then other pests. You know, like there are ladybirds eat the aphids. You know, the food chain has then been disrupted.

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458.381 - 459.683 Clare Byrne

Unintended consequences.

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459.803 - 477.126 Marie Staunton

Unintended. Exactly. Yeah. So it is difficult. No, you just have to go after them. That's it. Squish them. Squish them. Between the caterpillars on the box and the sawflies and everything else that's attacking stuff at the minute, there's a lot of squishing going on in gardens. Do caterpillars like roses? They like, yeah. They like anything.

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477.387 - 492.666 Marie Staunton

So, I mean, they're really, their main kind of box caterpillar at the moment is just decimating box hedging. And people are going out and squishing them at night and stuff. You know, who knew Netflix and then squishing caterpillars, creepers.

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492.646 - 501.066 Clare Byrne

This listener wants to grow some veg in the garden. They were thinking about starting with simple things like garlic and scallions. Can I do those in a pot or do they need deeper ground to grow properly?

501.347 - 516.917 Marie Staunton

No, they're ground in a pot. And the great thing about, I suppose, in a pot, you know, there is a system of growing veg. So you can't grow... garlic and onions in the same place next year as you did this year. So having them in a pot and then just changing the pot to a next pot because they get onion rot.

517.358 - 524.849 Marie Staunton

So yes, it's perfectly acceptable to grow stuff in pots, especially if you've got a small garden and, you know, a little balcony garden or something. Perfect.

524.87 - 526.051 Clare Byrne

It's a good way to start as well.

526.071 - 533.301 Marie Staunton

It is, because then you can keep an eye. You know, veg gardens are usually down the end of the garden, you know, and you have a lot of walk, you know, so in pots it's much easier.

Chapter 7: Can I grow roses in pots, and how should I care for them?

730.027 - 747.952 Clare Byrne

Just search for Never Have I Ever on the Go Loud app or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to follow or subscribe so that you never miss an episode. So that brings us to the end of the programme today. Thank you for listening. You can listen back on the Go Loud app if you missed anything. The team today, Cormac McDonagh on sound, producers Dee King, Helena O'Toole and Alex Russo.

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748.292 - 751.917 Clare Byrne

Research by David O'Connor. Our broadcast assistant is Anne-Marie Cain.

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753.196 - 762.497 Claire Byrne

The Clare Byrne Show. With Aviva Insurance. Weekday mornings at 9 on Newstalk. Conversation that counts.

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