I find Skimmia a little dull but they do add spots of colour at a useful time of year in shaded spots and can be quite fragrant.

I love this plant for the scent in winter, the fact that it is a pretty evergreen and has black berries. I have two, an established one in the back and a new one in the front.

Very reliable adding soapy pink colour to the bed from mid summer onwards. It responds well to dead heading and will continue to the frosts. It then disappears until the following year. 30 cms and spreading.

Fabulous yellow flowers all autumn.

This is a very pretty, double, crinkled patio rose with slight scent. it had slightly weak stems to begin with but has put on strong growth with thick new shoots in 2013 and is looking fab and flowering profusely. It repeats.

I am a bit of a sucker for names and this was a must have because I lived in Mumbai, India for five years in the mid 1990s. As it happens it is also a beautiful hydrid tea with dark shiny foliage and a fabulous scent. It is not very floriferous but when they come they are stunning.

This is a beautiful, pale yellow, scented rose that I have treated rather shabbily. It was initially in a large planter by the kitchen door where it worked hard to flower each year but was a bit thin and spindly - who can blame it. Roses, especially climbing ones, are not really happy in pots unless they are designed for them.

A couple of years ago I put it out of its misery and moved it to the fence in the Hot bed where it is thriving better. It has flowered well in 2013 and repeated slowly all season. It's obviously much happer being in a bed because it is now sending up wonderful, thick, new shoots - so I have high hopes for it going forward.

I inherited this rose so I don't know what it is. It has become big and strong in my ten years here. It is a cluster flowered, scarlet red climber. The flowers are not scented but it repeats and repeats all season so has more than earned its place. It looked great through the Fremontedenron (RIP) and had to be cut back when it (the F) was removed in 2012 but it has put on great new, thick growth since then and is flourishing again in 2013.

This rose has grown itself from seed so I have no idea what it is but it is very cute and lives in a barrel with some Clematis.

In 2012 I re-created the North facing front garden, got rid of a very old privet hedge, dug a completely new bed beside my new low wall and railings and have planted things that I hope will manage with light but very little direct sunlight. This rose is one of three planted that can cope with shade - I hope. They are tall standards ie grafted at 100cms so they will flower above the railings. One was R. 'Champagne Moment'  and I planted two R. 'Cream Abundance' either side of it because supposedly it has smaller, cream, cluster flowers and is sweetly scented and repeats, with good disease resistance.

However, as you can see, the flowers are enormous and red/pink on the outside and cream in the middle. They are also fragrant as promised. They have not been "what they said on the tin" but I am not complaining. They look and smell fabulous and are already repeating. Very impressive for roses in year one and much appreciated by my neighbours and those walking past.