Roses Ideas, Tips & Guides

Although June’s abundance of bloom and colour has moved on, July has brought its own striking sights throughout the garden – plants blooming for the first time, growing much taller than usual or otherwise making an impact in a way they never had before. I have already shown Clematis ‘Prince George’ a number of times this year, but it is now flowering literally from bottom to top and I can’t resist sharing it again (below). The individual blooms are delightful too, intriguingly crinkly (above).

There's perhaps no flower that's inspired more poetry, art, and prose than a rose. From formal rose gardens surrounded by boxwood hedges to cottage gardens overflowing with roses, foxglove, and native flowers, these layered blooms are held up as the star of the garden. They're carefully pruned into formal arrangements and allowed to climb and cascade over charming trellises.

I failed to say that the reconfigured rose garden featured yesterday is far from a ‘fait accompli’, and won’t be completed till much later this year or probably into the next. Firstly, I need to do something with the six slabs removed from the central area, the largest of which are 30″ x 18″ and all of them far heavier than they were when the last rose garden layout was established back in 2012. Although they are concrete, they are cast from moulds of real flag stones and there is a pleasing variation between them. We used these extensively when we laid the paved area and many of the paths and, although they were fairly reasonably priced when we first bought them, prices have escalated as we found when planning another project more recently – and hard to source, especially singly. At the moment, I cannot see where we might use them, but I am reluctant to get rid of them and they will need to be stored – which involves moving them… Then there are those nine bags of rubble (already moved down to the front of the house)…fortunately a local friend is happy to take rubble to fill in a boggy area where she stables horses…

No matter if you’re a gardening novice or avid planter, we all make mistakes whether it’s neglecting our blooms while away on vacation or accidentally overwatering them. While flower beds and shrubs can be a bit more forgiving, container gardening takes a little more attention. We called on two plant pros to share container gardening mistakes that should be avoided, along with easy solutions to combat them.

The best way to enjoy roses is up close and personal so you may fully relish their intricate patterns, fragrance, and brilliant hues, especially in smaller spaces or when you want to try something unique. Here are some straightforward tips for growing roses in hanging baskets and ensuring long-lasting blooms.

Roses are some of the most beautiful and versatile garden plants. They come in a variety of forms, from patio roses to shrub roses, ramblers and climbers. Nearly all of them make an excellent cut flower. Single-flowered roses are great pollinator plants, while some species are used by leafcutter bees to make their nests. Most roses need sun and heavy soils to thrive, but some will grow well in partial shade and poorer soils. There really is a rose, or three, for every garden.

Not new to the garden, that is, but new this year, like ‘carpet rose’ ‘Magic Carpet’ above, which has come into flower just in the last week or so at the end of the shrub border. On this raised bank, it is perhaps the ideal type of rose to loll about here, but it does seem to start flowering several weeks later than all the other roses and probably even later this year. Campanula ‘Loddon Anna’, shown below with white Sweet William and a pink flowered Stachys officianalis, possibly ‘Cotton Candy’, is certainly later as she is normally in bloom along with alliums in May/June.

Each of our 2-for-1 Gardens has its own story to tell and many of these gardens have inspired famous authors, playwrights and poets. Enjoy a visit over the summer using your 2-for-1 Gardens card to these inspiring gardens and save money on your visit.

Each of our 2-for-1 Gardens has its own story to tell and many of these gardens have inspired famous authors, playwrights and poets. Enjoy a visit over the summer using your 2-for-1 Gardens card to these inspiring gardens and save money on your visit.

As we enter the peak of rose season, join us as we take a ramble through some of the most romantic rose gardens in 2-for-1 Gardens. You can save money on visits to all of these rose gardens, using your 2-for-1 Gardens entry card. Visit soon to capture the roses in all their glory.

As we enter the peak of rose season, join us as we take a ramble through some of the nation’s most romantic rose gardens. You can save money on visits to all of these rose gardens, using your 2-for-1 Gardens entry card. Visit soon to capture the roses in all their glory.

The garden as a whole has looked pretty hot in recent weeks, with June’s abundance filling it with glorious colour and lush foliage; the gardener, however, sees it very differently, and will quickly provide a list of its defects, things which a casual visitor might overlook. As simple as the overblown geranium above (probably G ‘Ann Folkard’), perhaps, draping itself over several smaller choice plants in front of it, or a more complex problem like the lack of support given to Rosa ‘Strawberry Hill’ (gearing up for a repeat flush) by its current support, below. Certainly, as I see it, everything is NOT coming up roses, or maybe it is but just not in the right place.

Trellis can be an easy way to increase privacy in your garden, as it provides support for climbers such as clematis, roses, jasmine and sweet peas. Choose evergreen climbers and you can enjoy added privacy year round. Adding a trellis topper to an existing fence or wall is a simple way to create more room for climbers but there are many other trellis options, including fan-shaped panels that can be attached to house walls, trellis for containers and free-standing trellis, which can be used as a screen in your garden.

Confession time: my green thumb is completely nonexistent. I struggle to keep the beautiful flower bouquets I bring home alive for as long as I can remember.

Hellebores are generally very accommodating plants flowering early in spring and living happily in shade. Avoid Helleborus foetidus the stinking hellebore or setterwort.  If you want coloured rose like flowers with shapely green leaves try  growing them in a dedicated green bed.

Happy Friday GPODers! We’re on the road again, this time seeing a slice of an expansive botanic garden in Texas with Frances Watson.

I have mentioned the performance of my clematis this year several times, and thought I would do a quick reccy of them today to substantiate my feeling that it is a poor year for them here. Not including those that didn’t perform at all last year (mostly herbaceous clematis in the middle of borders, which have unaccountably been reluctant to establish), there are 15 in flower, 17 not yet flowering (many a long way off doing so) and 5 no-shows. All those not yet flowering would usually have been blooming since mid-June or so, other than ‘Duchess of Albany’ and ‘Gravetye Beauty’, who don’t start till later (strange then that ‘Princess Diana’, also a C texensis, is one of the first Group 3 clematis to flower).

Claire Hoppe

A harmonious Dorset rose garden designed by Isabel and Julian Bannerman

23 of the Best Rose Varieties for Creating a Hedge

By midsummer, the flower borders are a riot of colour. It’s an ideal time to take stock, deciding which areas look good and which need plants moving or adding to create the best summer displays. Flowering plants such as dahlias, sweet peas and roses will benefit from regular feeding at this time of year, while deadheading will help to keep many plants flowering longer. It’s also time to prepare for seasons to come, by sowing biennials and planting autumn-flowering bulbs.

With garden openings over for 2024, my ramblings around the garden involve a combination of “this is gorgeous!”, “aren’t we fortunate?”, “thank goodness that’s over” and “how can I improve this?”. Already thoughts have turned to potential ‘tweaks’, nothing major, and ways to improve things I don’t feel have really worked – perhaps I will write a post on them in due course…

Edimentals is a new term for growing flowers and vegetables together. Gardens today are often too small to have a separate ‘veg patch.’

Blueland

A rose garden used to mean a garden planted only with roses.

Q: Our 25-year-old Aloha rose has failed to bloom again this season. It used to be in full bloom throughout the month of June. Can you recommend any treatment to restore it to its former glory? A Forsyth

There is a certain day in the calendar year, a date that marks the dividing line between its two halves, whose significance as an important horticultural turning point is not lost on experienced gardeners. Known as the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere it was yesterday, June 21st, the longest day and shortest night of the year, when the North Pole was at its greatest tilt towards the sun.

If you want to put your BBC Gardeners’ World 2 for 1 Gardens entry card and guide to good use this year, The Savill Garden is a must-visit. Set like a jewel in the heart of Windsor Great Park, it’s a garden for all seasons, always filled with colour and sights to behold, but during the summer months especially you can delight in its magnificent roses.

How to Identify and Control Botrytis Blight in Roses Botrytis cinerea

I have chosen roses to go in my Monday vase this week because they are the most floriferous blooms in the garden at this point in mid-June. There are two varieties, growing together in the gallery border, and both seem to have done better this year than before – behind the gallery fence is the woodland which blocks sun from the south, so the roses only get the morning and late afternoon sun. However, our neighbours cut some of the lower branches from their huge mature beech over the winter and perhaps this allows more light to filter through.

33 of the Best Red Rose Varieties to Grow at Home

Although our first proper opening of the garden is not till a week tomorrow, we had a group visit on Thursday, a mixed blessing, as it meant the garden had to be more or less ‘ready’ over a week sooner than it might otherwise have had to be. We didn’t have any group visits last year, the first year that we hadn’t, and this was the first time we had a visit before the main openings as I had previously avoided this – June is probably the most floriferous month, and sometimes we could be in limbo for two or three weeks after the main openings until all group visits were over, before we could loosen the reins a little. Interestingly, this gardening group, from one of the local villages, had previously visited us the first year we opened, although all but a handful of them were new members so the garden was new to them.

Dearest gentle readers, are you dreaming of a day frolicking through pastel flower beds, idling away in romantic gardens? Well, if you’ve caught the latest season of «Bridgerton», that wouldn’t be surprising.

For the ultimate in low-maintenance planting, intersperse small balls of box with a seasonal display of bulbs and summer bedding: tulips in spring, geraniums in summer and winter pansies in autumn — or almost any annuals that take your fancy.

Oriental poppies in any shade may look dramatic when in bloom, but don’t flower for long, flop unattractively and certainly don’t die back well. Somehow they still merit space in a border, but if they start thinking they can take over the world then they are OUT, although removing them is never as easy as one would like it to be. I have a basic fiery scarlet one, pale coral pink Papaver ‘Princess Victoria Louise’ and the more recent acquisition above, ‘Royal Wedding’. The blooms on this one seem particularly large, especially when the petals are splayed out like a frilly tutu – no doubt they will be gone by tomorrow!

Chafer grubs are the larvae of chafer beetles in the family Scarabaeidae, which also includes dung beetles. There are eight species of chafer beetle in the UK. Some can cause issues in lawns, but many do not. In fact, some chafer beetles are pollinators, while some larvae help break down decaying matter. What’s more, chafer beetles and their larvae form part of healthy ecosystems, providing food for a range of birds and mammals.