It was the bit about roses that really made me think, though. I'd never really considered whether roses use their thorns for any other purpose than to deter predators, but it seems that the thorns, which face downwards, act a bit like crampons. As each stem reaches up, it uses the thorns to hook onto things. If it fails, it flops over, whereupon new shoots break out along its length. These then use the old stem to get a leg-up, whereupon the same process begins again.
Ages ago, I read an article by Vita Sackville-West, in which she recommended bending over the stems of shrub roses and pegging the ends to the ground in order to make them break out. The idea was to make the plant more bushy rather than have flowers only at the top and a mass of stems below, as is so common with roses. What I hadn't worked out until now, being a bear of little brain, is that she was exploiting the rose's natural growth habit in order to do this.
The gardening writer Mary Keen is also a fan of this technique, so I know it's been tried and tested. However, according to Michael Marriott of David Austin Roses, you can use the same technique not only to grow shrub roses but to turn a large floppy shrub rose into a climber. If you train the stems laterally - along a trellis, for example - they also send out new shoots along the length and the whole thing is supported by the framework against which it is growing rather than flopping about in the border, gouging holes in your fingers or legs as you unsuspectingly potter about nearby.
I don't really do roses, having a fairly jungly garden. But I do have a couple of David Austin 'Golden Celebration' roses (above) which the company were giving away on Chelsea press day a couple of years ago and they seem to survive OK in my steamy plot. They do get quite leggy and floppy, though, so I've decided to train one against the fence and try the Vita technique on the other. I'll let you know how it goes.
