Day 23, and this rose was so very nearly Day 24 of the Rose Advent

Today’s and tomorrow’s rose are both still flowering in the garden here, and so they very much deserve their place.

Rosa ‘Macmillan Nurse’: sometimes she is white and sometimes she blushes just a little bit. And sometimes she’s a tiny bit peachy. Swipe along for a photo of her tea-stained in December. Even on the soggiest of mornings, like today, she keeps on going.

Her complexion is enviable: perfect, fresh and dewy. And look at those petals. It’s as if someone has collected a thousand pieces of tissue paper and arranged them perfectly in a box.

These flowers are just scrumptious - every time one blooms, I’m flabbergasted over and over again. Perfection.

Rosa Macmillan Nurse flowers all summer long. She flowers in the light and in the shade, and as you move through these images, you’ll see that she’ll even flower 10ft high up in a birch that she somehow climbed. I’ve tried telling this particular one that she’s not a climber but she’s not having any of it. The other two are planted in the sun and therefore behave as they should, but I took a gamble with this one and popped it in the shade of tree - not what it says in the rule books.

On the subject of rule books, you’ll probably have worked out that I mostly operate a ‘suck it and see’ policy in this garden. The roses don’t get sprayed with anything apart from love and affection, and occasionally they get put where they are put because I think they might look jolly there and that they MIGHT be ok. If they don’t like it, they can always be moved but so far so good.