The Nature Garden: gardening, wildlife and nature notes · The Weekending Show

Nightjars & roses

·37 min·2 clips

The male nightjar has four white spots; the female is plain brown and the bird flies with a wing clap and a cheer.

1. The Nature Garden: gardening, wildlife and nature notes focuses on roses, nightjars, curlews, and July garden jobs. 2. Carl Steinson introduces Tom Pattinson, Tom Cadwallander, and Steve Lowe, with Lionheart Radio named as the week-ending show team. 3. The episode asks what is blooming, what is migrating, and what needs doing in the garden now. 4. Tom Pattinson says the first flush of roses usually comes in the last week of June or first week of July in the Thumbland. 5. He says hot weather after a cold spring brought his roses forward to the second week of June this year. 6. Pattinson names the Anick Garden rose garden as a nearby place with 2,000 donated David Austin roses. 7. He describes Joie as apricot-orange, fragrant, and changing color as it matures. 8. He describes Olivia Rose Austin as pink, cupped, and fruity-scented. 9. He says Gabriel Oak has deep pink blooms and a strong fragrance. 10. He says Chandos Beauty is a vigorous hybrid tea type with a very strong scent and can be found through the Fragrant Rose Company website. 11. Pattinson says roses need dead flower heads removed to keep producing blooms through summer and into November. 12. He calls the sweet briar Rosa rubiginosa a plant worth growing for the smell of ripe apples when the leaves are rubbed. 13. He links the apothecary rose Rosa gallica officinalis to the Red Rose of Lancaster and dates it to before 1300. 14. He recounts a friend finding a crusader rose mention in old deeds and propagating it from hardwood cuttings. 15. He names Rosa mundi, Rosa gallica versicolor, as an old rose with pale pink petals striped crimson. 16. He finishes the rose list with Rosa rugosa 'Roseraie de l'Haÿ' and the white rose Boule de Neige. 17. Tom Cadwallander says he is not keen on birding in the dark but wanted to see nightjars in summer. 18. He identifies the European nightjar as the British species, explains its twilight activity, and notes that the birds winter in Africa. 19. This episode suits gardeners, birders, and people who like named plants and species. 20. This episode may not suit listeners who want a tightly edited story with no practical advice.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Nature Garden: gardening, wildlife and nature notes