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When we moved here from our Peckham garden with space to try a new plant palette, we set aside a section of the old trial garden to get to know a number of the David Austin Roses. I wanted to live with them day to day rather than vicariously through my clients’ gardens, so I took a trip up to the David Austin rose garden in Albrighton and spent an afternoon in the third week of June in the generous company of Michael Marriott, their rosarian. There is nothing like time spent with experts, or in seeing the plants right there in front of you, each with its own character and, once you had buried your nose in flower, its own perfume. Some spicy, others tangy and smelling of citrus or as fresh and clean as tea.
I had several requirements. I knew I would be using species roses in the wider landscape where they would sit more happily, but for cutting it was important that the roses were good performers and had a long season. I wanted plants that were disease-resistant, because I didn’t want to spray, and it was imperative that they had scent. What would be the point in having a bedside rose that simply sat prettily ?
I came away with a list of twenty four varieties ranging from white through cream and yellow, and then all shades of pink and on into apricot, orange and reds. Most were doubles with quartered blooms, because I wanted to have a little opulence, and it was also important that the foliage had good character. The first plants had five years in the old garden when I dismantled the trial beds to make way for the garden landscaping. At that point I rejected a few that were weak or not right here and replanted with new plants and a few new varieties up by the old barns. I like them here against the corrugated tin, planted in practical rows which suggest and allow for ease of picking.
The last nine years here they have shown me what they are made of. In general the yellows have done less well for us, but our West Country climate, with its heavy dews and year round dampness, may be the reason that a few have been prone to blackspot. The beautiful clear yellow ‘Graham Thomas’ succumbed here, though it has done well and been ‘clean’ for friends. ‘Charlotte’ has also failed and neither have been replaced because there is simply no point in having a sick rose when there are a host of others that are strong and healthy. I have struggled to keep a couple of reds and oranges too, but have been happy to spray twice with a sulphur-based fungicide early and mid-season to keep ‘Munstead Wood’ and ‘Summer Song’.
‘Munstead Wood’ is simply the best of the reds, deep and lustrous and beautifully perfumed like your memory of what a rose should smell like. Though not a strong grower, it responds well to being nurtured and I am prepared to do so for the reward. ‘Summer Song’ is perhaps my favourite of all in terms of colour, with a burnt orange flower and delicious zesty perfume. It too is weak and I would never recommend it in a planting scheme, but it can be forgiven for its less than athletic figure in the cutting garden. Cutting the roses regularly is a good opportunity to check on health and vigour. We dead head as we go to keep the flowers coming. I feed with organic chicken manure pellets after their first flush and this helps to keep them in good condition and plentiful right through to November. We have found that the Austin roses take a couple of years to settle in, but are fully up and running in year three.
Of those that have done well, ‘The Lark Ascending’ is by far the strongest and a firm favourite. Healthy and amassing a good six feet in a season, the foliage has the mattness of an old-fashioned rose. The flowers are delightful, semi-double, cupping open to reveal a boss of stamens they deteriorating elegantly. The semi-doubles and the singles last less well as cutting flowers but are better for pollinators and this combination of elements make it a good candidate for a mixed planting. The tea-rose scent is delicate, but its habits make it worth this minor compromise.
‘Mortimer Sackler’ is also open in character, with loose-petalled, shell pink flowers and an airy personality. Dark stems, delicate growth and fine foliage are more reminiscent of a chinensis rose. The scent is light, but it is a singularly graceful plant. Of all the David Austin roses that we grow, these last two are most relaxed in habit and would be easy in combination with plants like gaura or cenolophium. ‘Mortimer Sackler’ would also take well to being wall-trained.
‘The Lady of Shallot’ is one of the best cutting roses, strong and reliable and balanced as a shrub of about four feet. Lasting some time in a vase and beautifully proportioned, the soft orange is easy to use alongside pinks and yellows and its perfume, though recessive, is a fruity tea scent.
‘Lady Emma Hamilton’ is an excellent, strong-growing plant of similar colour to ‘The Lady of Shallot’, though a little more golden. However, it differs in the dark plum colouring that runs through the new foliage and tints the outside of the buds and then then suffuses the edges of each petal as the flowers age. The overall impression is rich and warm, while the zesty scent is strong and delicious.
‘Julbilee Celebration’ is an opulent rose and, although the weight of the flower tends to make for a plant that hangs its head (and more so in damp weather), its faded rose colour is unusual. There is enough salmon in it to bridge the pinks, but also a little yellow to act as a mediator between the yellows, apricots and oranges. The scent is proper old rose and, though it is a stiff, stocky grower, I like it immensely once it gets going.
I prefer strong pinks in a garden, campion pink or the electric pink of Dianthus carthusianorum. I do not gravitate towards soft, pale pinks but ‘Scepter’d Isle’ is a good clean pink and a very pretty rose in a bunch, although its scent, described as ‘myrrh’ is hard to pin down. ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ starts a strong deep pink fading as it ages and, although not such an attractive form as others, is by far the best of the roses for perfume. Pure rose and transporting. You only need a bud in a jar to work a room. She is the first of the roses to flower every year and reliable throughout the season.
‘A Shropsire Lad’ is by far the most vigorous with limbs that can easily reach six feet in a season and I suspect would make a better climber than a shrub. The flower is fully quartered when it is young, but loosens as it opens, with delicate, creamy flesh tones and a traditional tea rose scent.
Reaching to eight feet or so the clean, apple green foliage of ‘Claire Austin’ is a fine foil for the creamy white flowers, which are elegant and poised, but do bow gently under their own weight, so it makes for a better climber. I have grown it as such with some success in clients’ gardens, but it also makes a good, rangy shrub that would benefit from some support in a garden setting. The perfume is green and fresh and not remotely heady.
Although we grow two dozen of the extensive Austin range, my aim is to refine down to half that number, slowly letting the ones that reveal themselves to be right for our tastes to gently assert themselves. Cutting is a very nice way to do that. A regular connection and intimacy is always the best way to get to know the keepers.
Main image, left to right: The Lark Ascending, Claire Austin, Munstead Wood, The Lady of Shallot, Jubilee Celebration, Gertrude Jekyll (front), Scepter’d Isle (back), A Shropshire Lad, Lady Emma Hamilton, Summer Song, Mortimer Sackler
Words: Dan Pearson | Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 25 July 2020
As September light casts its autumnal influence, the hips have lit up the hedges. Though it would be easier to get on the land to cut the hedges whilst it is still dry, we choose to wait until February in order to preserve their bounty. The birds work the heavy trusses of elder first, then move onto the wild privet before starting on the rosehips. Their fruits are still taut and shiny and it will be a while yet before they start to wrinkle and soften to something more palatable. If you are quick enough to get there before the birds, this is the perfect time to harvest them, the hips coming away easily to sticky your hands and stain fingertips scarlet.
Although I planted a couple of dozen eglantine whips (Rosa rubiginosa) to gap up the hedges when we arrived, I raised a batch of seedlings from the first hips they bore. An autumn sowing spawned more seedlings than I could deal with after the winter chill they need to break dormancy. I potted up a hundred seedlings and grew them on for a summer so that, a year after sowing, they were ready for planting out. Two years in pots (with potting on) would have made them stronger and probably more resilient to the fierce competition of being out in the wild, but the seedlings that did make it through are now doing handsomely.
Rosa rubiginosa
The eglantine seedlings were planted widely, so that their perfumed foliage accompanies us on the walks we make over the land. They appear close to the gates and the stiles in the hedges, so that their apple-y perfume catches you unexpectedly and where they break free into the meadows. Six years after sowing, the best plants are now as tall as I am and weighted with fruit. Where we have deer down in the hollow above the brook, they have been left completely alone where other plants have been grazed, so I have also started to use them around the garden and as perfumed hedges in the hope that their scented foliage acts as a deterrent. Deer love roses as a rule, but dislike perfumed foliage, so the eglantines may be prove to be as useful as they are beautiful.
Rosa spinossisima
We have several forms of Rosa spinosissima now throughout the garden, but my favourite are the plants I raised from those I found in the sand dunes of Oxwich Bay on the Gower Peninsula. Growing to not much more than a foot, which is small for a Scots briar, the plants were growing sparsely and in pure sand amongst bloody cranesbill and sea holly. Their flowers had long gone, as it was late summer, but the round fruits were black and shiny. I gathered a couple and the resulting seedlings were set out two years ago now in an exposed position on our rubbly drive. Though the plants are heartier, growing to twenty four inches to date in our easier growing conditions, I am pleased to see they have retained their diminutive presence. We will see over time if they form thickets to the exclusion of the violets and crocus I’ve paired them with, as the briar is prone to move and colonise ground by runners. The creamy cupped flowers run up the vertical stems in early May, but the inky hips have been good since mid-summer and are only just this week starting to wrinkle and lose their gloss.
Rosa glauca
Though young and not yet expressing their stature in the garden, the Rosa glauca (main image) are sporting their first hips this year. The single flowers, which are small but always delightful, come on the previous year’s wood, so I will be making sure to always have some old wood for fruit. This is a foliage rose first and foremost and some books recommend coppicing every two to three years to encourage the best smoky-grey leaves, which are a perfect foil to the hips. I prefer to prune a third of the eldest limbs to the base at the end of winter to retain wood that will flower and fruit the following year. Ripening early for rosehips, they are bright and luminous, aging from scarlet to mahogany, and are some of the first to be stripped by the birds.
Rosa moyesii
The young Rosa moyesii on the banks behind the house are also showing good hips for the first time this year. These scarlet dog-roses are good amongst the cow parsley and meadow grasses that spill from the hedgerows in June, but their flagon-shaped hips are arguably their best asset, making this rose easily identifiable when fruiting. With arching growth and fine apple-green foliage, I will let the shrubs run to full height, which may well be ten foot or so if they decide that they like the position I have given them. They have room here on the banks and this is the best way to appreciate them, from every angle and with the yellowing autumn sun in their limbs.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 15 September 2018
It is that time again, a relay of one spectacle running into the next. In the hedgerows the hawthorns burst and spilled in Hockneyesque flurries, dimming only for a moment before being replaced by guelder rose and now the first of the elder with its creamy tiers piled high. In the garden, where we are working towards a similar principle of massed succession, the Rosa ‘Cooperi’ has helped us to connect to these whites in the landscape and jump the boundaries, so that your eye can travel a distance. First close up and then out, to leap from hedgerow to hillside.
I first saw Rosa ‘Cooperi’ about twenty years ago when I was judging the open gardens of Islington. It was love at first sight and I asked for and came away with a cutting, which rooted readily and took over the wall at the end of the garden in Peckham. It grew there vigorously and now I smart to think what the current owners must be dealing with, because this is a rose that needs headroom. A cutting was dutifully brought to Hillside where I released it onto the old barns (main image) and, seven years later, it is showing not a sign of slowing. Its limbs, reaching continually out and away from the last year’s extension growth, can easily make three to four metres in a season, though it is said to reach no more than ten. As the best flowering wood is the previous year’s, it makes sense to let it advance without curbing it too vigorously, and so it clouds and softens the building’s outline.
Rosa ‘Cooperi’ – Cooper’s Burmese rose
I keep it from overwhelming the barn – for it has made its way inside as well as out – by cutting back the excess of viciously thorned limbs in winter. You have to tie down your hat, or it will be whipped from your head, and wear tough clothing, never a jumper, which will be laddered and have you snared in moments. Wrangling aside, the dark, glossy foliage is the perfect foil for a succession of simple, ivory flowers that this year smattered in the last week of May and were at their zenith last weekend when these photographs were taken.
In form they are as pure as dog roses, but twice the size, becoming speckled pink if they get rained upon and as they age. The display lasts three weeks reliably, a month if you are lucky, but I never complain about this brevity. In fact, there are two glossy cuttings waiting in my holding area for somewhere to release them into grass. I’d like to see how ‘Cooper’s Burmese’ would take to not having anywhere to climb. I have a hunch it might mound and then stop its advance with nowhere to go, so in long grass on a bank I could simply edit its longest limbs from a sensible distance with long-armed pruners.
Rosa glauca
We have removed all the double David Austin roses from the garden and made a cutting area where they sit in sensible rows with dahlias and cutting peonies. Their opulence is wonderful in a vase, but not where I want things to feel on the wild side. Instead, Rosa glauca has made its way into the perennial planting, Its young coppery foliage ages to a completely matt grey-green as June gives way to full summer and it makes a delectable background, arching elegantly and scattering tiny, perfectly formed, pink dog roses along its limbs, which become mahogany-dark hips in autumn. I love it and am pleased to have it back after not having the room when gardening in London. If left untouched it will form a loose bumound of six foot in all directions. However, it can be coppiced hard every third or fourth year for the benefit of new, strongly coloured foliage, although you will have to wait a year before it starts to flower again.
Rosa ‘Scharlachglut’
The last time I grew Rosa ‘Scharlachglut’ was at Home Farm, where it spilled through the gold-flowered oat grass, Stipa gigantea, in the Barn Garden. Cultivated roses and grasses make curious bedfellows in the borders, but the singles sit well with informality. The colour in the enclosed space of the Barn Garden was deliberately provocative and you could feel the race of your pulse when the reds and pinks came together. ‘Scharlachglut’ means ‘Scarlet Blaze’ (it is sometimes sold as ‘Scarlet Fire’) and, true to its name, it flames fiercely against the green in the landscape here, but I am delighted to see it unapologetically announcing summer.
Though once blooming – as are its companions above – its brevity is remarkable. Scarlet, perfectly shaped buds open bright vermilion and age to a hot, cerise pink so that a range of colour appears along the length of arching limbs. As the flowers age they also increase in size and, although perfume is not its greatest strength, no matter, its presence is astonishing. Though I currently have it growing through comfrey and inula for later, as the planting matures I will add cow parsley so that the scarlet is suspended in cooling white. The timing is at the point of crossover where the lace of the anthriscus is dimming. When the cow parsley is over they will both be gone.
Rosa x odorata ‘Bengal Crimson’
Up by the house, and the only recurrent rose in this collection, is Rosa x odorata ‘Bengal Crimson’. Once again, this is a cutting from the garden in Peckham, where my original plant will be presenting less of a problem to its owners. Rosie Atkins gave me the mother plant when she was the curator at The Chelsea Physic Garden. It grows there in several places, spilling informally from the borders, for it is almost impossible to prune. The growth is soft and thornless, the limbs reaching whichever way they choose to go, but forming something lovely despite the lax behaviour. Being slightly tender, it loves London living and will easily grow to two metres or more in each direction against a wall, or taller with support in a sheltered position.
It hated life here initially and my young cutting burned and frazzled where it was exposed in its windy holding position. I have now found it a sheltered corner in the lea of the house where it looks like it ought to. Soft and choice, with pale, apple-green foliage and flowers that refuse to conform to order. Opening from perfect buds of crimson intensity, the single flowers rarely open completely, but fold and roll informally, fading so that they too have variance when they come together. As they do, one after another without pausing, until winter curtails the willingness to throw out more growth. That said, it is often in flower at Christmas, although by then the flowers are chilled to a softer pink. With a plant that is always so giving, it is important to repay it with the care of deadheading by taking the spent sprays back to fresh new growth. In doing so, you can give it just the amount of attention it needs to keep the plant looking good and, after a brief pause, it will respond with more flower. A simple exchange, and an opportunity to spend some time up close with this beauty.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 9 June 2018
