Roses: The vital role beautiful British roses can play in your garden

Basically, rambling roses are a lot more energetic than climbers – their stems are longer and more flexible – but they don’t flower as well.

While ramblers tend to bloom just once in a season, climbing roses devote more of their vigour into producing blooms throughout the summer.

Each has its own place in the garden, with climbers looking their best when trained to clothe walls and fences, and the more rampant ramblers thriving best meandering through trees.

Both, however, love the sun and a well-drained but moist and fertile soil. Fed regularly and pruned efficiently, they can become stalwarts of the garden, producing masses of colourful, scented flowers for many years.

Yet what happens where the sun doesn’t shine all that brightly – such as on south- or west-facing wall? Is it worth the time and expense of trying to grow a climber and rambler in a spot where light is at a premium?

Surprisingly, some roses are relatively happy to tackle the challenge, and although the conditions are more likely to encourage mildew, gardeners shouldn’t be deterred.

The climbing bourbon rose, ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’ always seems to do well on a north wall, and the fact that it’s a thornless variety means that it’s easier to tie in and prune.

And ‘Golden Showers’ is a fragrant, climbing rose with glossy, dark green leaves, pretty double, clear yellow flowers that is hardy enough to be able to tolerate the shade of a north-facing wall. It’s also disease resistant.

Another rampant climber ideal for a similar site is ‘Mme Alfred Carriere’. Clusters of pretty, pinkish white flowers are produced from summer to autumn.

Cotoneaster

June is probably the noisiest month of the year in the garden. Ignore the racket of all those lawn mowers; instead, tune your ears to the insects taking the opportunity to feast on the free banquet offered by the unspectacular but unbeatable cotoneaster.

It’s not actually free food, of course, because the plant has an ulterior motive – it wants all those happy insects to pollinate its flowers. To humans - particularly if they don’t use their noses - those blooms are insignificant.

In fact, a lot of people wouldn’t thanks you for the gift of a cotoneaster; they want bigger, bolder flowers, magnificent foliage; what you get with a cotoneaster is tiny leaves, tiny flowers and, thanks to all those noisy insects, tiny berries in autumn.

You also get an incredibly hardy plant, often with the ability to grow horizontally or vertically, which can be pruned to order and which, before it goes to sleep for winter, goes out in a blaze of autumnal colour.

So, if you want a shrub which can be persuaded to grow where and how you want it to grow, and a shrub which attracts (with a fragrance of honey) not only hordes of insects but which also provides valuable nourishment for birds – particularly blackbirds – then you could do worse than grow a cotoneaster.

This is an adaptable family of plants, so there should be a space – large or small – where one would fit in comfortably. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some begin to flower in May; others wait until June before producing tiny, white, scented blossoms.

Some cotoneasters are happy to remain small all their lives; others will rapidly climb upwards to clothe a wall or fence, and such is the strength or their branches that they rarely if even require tying in place. And it’s even possible to grow a cotoneaster as a small tree.

If that’s not enough to persuade you to grow one, then consider that all are hardy and will tolerate even the meanest of soils. Once planted, they can be left to get on with growing, and the evergreen varieties will produce year-round interest.

Painted

The painted daisy (Tanacetum coccineum) is commonly seen but rarely identified.

It’s a beautiful perennial with fern-like leaves and a circle of petals surrounding a dense round centre.

It’s a favourite of flower-arrangers but it can also be grown outdoors in a sunny spot where the soil is moist but well-drained.

Painted daisies are fast-growing and can handle some periods of drought but they don’t like too much heat – so choose with care any planting site

If you’re growing them from seed, pinch back to encourage bushier growth and more flowers once plants are six inches tall.

Winter protection is unnecessary for painted daisies in climates with cold, frosty winters, but you can hard-prune (cut by half) and put a layer of mulch over the root bed to insulate the plant’s roots.

Painted daisies grow well in containers as long as the soil/compost is never allowed to dry out. In fact, it pays to top the pot with a mulch.

Once the plant starts outgrowing its container remove the root-ball and split it by pulling apart the roots and then replant in fresh, well-draining compost.

Painted daisies can be grown indoors if you have a bright, southern-facing window.