Gardening visit from Roses Royalty
On Wednesday 24th June, pupils at IRA were treated to a visit from local gardening legend, Alistair Dowling. At an impressive 93 years young, Mr Dowling shared some of his top rose-growing secrets with us.
Apparently, roses have quite an unusual diet – chicken pellets and fish blood are among their favourite treats! Who knew?
When asked how long it takes to grow a rose bush from planting to flowering, Mr Dowling didn't hesitate: 16 weeks. Given that he has over 270 rose bushes in his own garden, we decided it was probably best not to argue with him!
The pupils thoroughly enjoyed the visit and learned a great deal. We are now looking forward to returning the favour and visiting Mr Dowling's rose garden in the autumn term. Hopefully, by then, our roses will be thriving too – although we're not sure we're quite ready to start feeding them fish blood, as our bush seemed to thrive on rotten banana juice!