Roses are one of those flowers that need to have a perfume. There’s such a choice from delicate through to musky that it seems a waste of the olfactory sense not to have aromatic roses. Roses have a long history in our gardens, and while Rose gardens waver in and out of fashion; roses themselves never totally leave the worldwide top ten favourite flowers list.
This is a small selection of some of the rose gardens we’ve visited in the last year or so. There are both gardens which are purely a rose garden, plus those which are separate rose gardens within larger gardens.All are in southern England, but that doesnt mean rose gardens are limited to that area by any means!
Unfortunately the internet doesn’t yet have a ‘scratch and sniff’ facility, so you’ll need to use your imagination, but the warm sun certainly brought out the exotic and subtle scents for us to enjoy when we visited these rose gardens.
Southsea Rose Garden
This rose garden in Portsmouth has been developed on the site of a Victorian fort – ‘Lumps fort’ on the esplanade. High walls surround the roses, and this helps retain their delightful scent, as Portsmouth is notoriously gusty! Not all rose varieties like the salty air but this garden has a selection well beyond the trusty Rosa rugosa. Good use is made of the brick pergolas with roses climbing up and over these; and the axis of the main avenue has the sea beyond as its focal point.
Greenwich Park
You often find formal rose gardens in the older established public parks. In Greenwich Park, London, it lies next to the eighteenth century Rangers House, at the top of the hill -arguably more Blackheath than Greenwich.
The arc shaped beds give a long vista of roses and allow a strolling between borders with opportunity to stop and sniff. We visited after the ‘Race for Life’ in aid of Cancer Research and were particularly pleased to find that our favourite rose for scent and colour combined was Rosa ‘loving memory’.
Nymans, Sussex
In Nymans rose garden (a rose garden within a larger garden) it was interesting to see the use of some companion planting; in this case, Nepeta, or catmint. Roses, like many plants, thrive when planted in a community rather than as a single species. Nepeta offers both aesthetic companion planting with soft foliage and purple blue flowers complementing all the roses in the garden, but also ‘true’ companion planting, as it helps deter pests.
Still with the companion planting, we spotted this standard rose surrounded by lavender in Hever Castle gardens, although not in their delightful walled rose garden.
Penshurst Place, Kent
At Penshurst Place, the rose garden also sports companion planting. Furry leaved Stachys byzantina offers a silver ground covering carpet with purple flowers spikes in summer. Paired with white flowering standard roses this is a subtle combination and one to copy in any sunny border; perhaps one rose at each end of the border with Stachys below, then the rest of the border filled with Santolina, Lavender and white Lychnis coronaria: lovely.
The silver foliage planting I’ve just suggested as a design idea for a south facing border would look good all year as, except for the rose, the planting is all evergreen. The bees would love it too.
Happy sniffing!
For further gardening advice and inspiration, ideas and tips for rose gardens and more, check out Plews Potting Shed blogs, including the selection below and our monthly Tipsheet . You could come and find us on Instagram – @plewsgd Pinterest and Facebook too.
And on that note, you can have a peek at my new garden in the (new) Instagram account @spitfiresandslowworms
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