This week I have been planting roses. The garden here is very steep but is in need of breaking up into intimate garden spaces. Creating intimate garden spaces on a mountain can be problematic because whatever is planted as a hedge or boundary on the lower side has to be substantially taller than what is planted on the upper side.
The project for this winter is really quite simple, break the garden into small intimate spaces with meandering paths so that you can’t always see what awaits you around the corner or in the next garden space.
Some of this I am creating with hedging like yew and beech but some I’ve decided to create with rose hedging. I have to admit that I am a big David Austin fan and putting a Davis Austin catalogue in front of me is fatal, mainly for my bank balance but hey a garden is for life – right?
Below our sun terrace there is currently a steep but straight wide path leading down the garden to the orchard and the second chicken house where we are creating a wild flower meadow. A path leads off this to the right to the pond, this path has a mixture of shrubs and magnolia trees on either side – really a very long term project.
To the left of this path I have created a Rugosa rose hedge with three different varieties:-
Sarah Van Fleet – a beautiful rose Pink of yellow stamens and a wonderful scent which grows upto 2m high
Mrs Anthony Waterer – Red blooms, good scent and grows to about 1.5m high
Wild Edric – gorgeous pink flowers from May to October and grows to 1.25 m high
We shall see how they all fare next year, the weather at the moment is ideal as its pouring with rain which will really help to settle the roots. I also have some older varieties of roses to plant (once the rain stops) and these are a mixture of Alba and Damask roses. I have the perfect place for these statuesque plants and I have no objection to roses that only flower once a year, I reliably informed that they are more magnificent that the repeat flowering varieties as all of there energy goes into one show. I’ve never grown them before so let’s see, most roses take a couple of years to settle in I find but I’m a patient man. So that’s all for today, happy gardening!
To the left of this path I have created a Rugosa rose hedge