What has given roses (and not only roses) such a boost this year? Bushes that routinely put on a respectable show have gone into overdrive with heavy trusses of flowers. Roses are falling from high in our sycamore. I feel like the guests at the feast of Heliogabalus in Alma Tadema’s painting being smothered under cascading flowers. Somehow the seasons, from the heat of Last August, through a kindly winter and soaking March, have engineered the perfect rose-storm. Dead-heading has already filled the Council’s blue bags again and again. Where does the Council compost all this fragrant material? In Kensington the shameful answer is that it doesn’t. It burns it.
