The rambling or climbing roses are doing well in the garden this year entwined with woodbine. The rose originally grew at the railway station in Coolaney and I took cuttings and they thrived here in Meath. I've no idea where it originally came from or what its correct name is.
The woodbine is Lonicera periclymenum Belgica and it has also done well.
Robert Frost mentions both the rose and woodbine in his poem To Earthward.
The woodbine is also mentioned in Milton's Paradise Lost. It's just before the fall, Adam wants Eve to work with him in the garden, she wants to go off and work on her own. She says:
Let us divide our labours, thou where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
The Woodbine round this Arbour, or direct
The clasping Ivie where to climb
(Paradise Lost Book 9, 214-217)
Adam agrees, the devil in disguise tempts her and you know the rest.
More about woodbine here and here.
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