The Rose Garden Brief
Dreaming of a Summer scented sanctuary, full of roses, companion plants, and blooms that last right through to Autumn
Inspiration
​
After a visit to The Rose Garden at Anglesey Abbey earlier this year (2023), I was inspired to design a rose garden of my own. However, our quaint cottage lends itself more to the loose cottage style rather than the formal, rigid rectangular grid that is favoured to suit the more majestic backdrop of the Abbey. The curves that we saw within the Rose Garden at The Alnwick Garden are more in line with the sort of style that would work on our plot, and I particularly liked their curved borders and support structures for the climbers.
The romantic Rose Garden at The Alnwick Garden.
With all of this in mind, I started dreaming about my own Rose Garden with relaxed planting, full scent, and soft colours.
Choosing the best position
​
Roses typically like full sun, so it seemed most sensible to design the Rose Garden in the plot adjacent to the house where it gets full sun from late morning throughout the Summer. This gives a reasonable size plot to work with, whilst still being small enough to create an intimate space.
​
The other advantage to choosing this particular part of our plot is the high visibility from multiple rooms in the house: the bathroom, two bedrooms, kitchen, and playroom all have views of this part of our plot, so we can enjoy this garden from many vantage points. This will extend our enjoyment of the plot, but it also means that it will be important to consider Winter interest in this space, too.
The bathroom, two bedrooms, kitchen, and playroom all have views over this part of the plot.
Considering the intended use of the space
​
Before we can dive straight into designing, we have to reflect on what we want to achieve with this space and how we intend to use the Rose Garden. My main goal is to create a Summer scented sanctuary that is relaxing to visit. I want to be able to sit in that space on a sunny day, and breathe in intoxicatingly sweet scents from the roses and their companions.
I also want this part of the garden to feel like a defined room within the garden, rather than being openly visible from the rest of the plot. This will help to make the garden feel bigger by forcing us to explore different parts of the garden to reveal different rooms and pockets throughout the plot, rather than having everything open and visible at once. Therefore, we should consider how the plot is planted up at its boundary to create this room, and we should consider how this part of the garden is accessed.
​
In order to fully relax, I want the space to be totally private. We currently only have a paddock fence between us and the meadow next door, which means that anyone looking into the meadow from the meadow gate can see into our garden. Although the meadow doesn't get many visitors stopping to stare, we did witness the meadow being used as a car park for a wedding in the village once (!!) and we have seen people wandering through it from time to time. Therefore, we would like to improve our privacy along that boundary, just within the Rose Garden. The meadow is private 99.9% of the time, and it is truly stunning, so we will limit the privacy along this boundary to the Rose Garden only, and we will leave it open further down the plot in the back garden to keep access to the view. Shielding the Rose Garden along that boundary gives us a private retreat on the rare occasion that the meadow is being accessed by others.
​
In practical terms, we also need to add some storage to the garden, and this plot is a great spot for it because it allows easy access to the large driveway at the front of our property. Therefore, I will incorporate some storage solutions into this design. Access to the storage needs to be considered carefully to ensure the pathways are hardwearing and suitable for heavy foot traffic because the storage will be accessed frequently. Although I love the idea of having set cobbles for pathways in cottage gardens, our budget will not allow that, so we will have to find a budget-friendly solution that will look good for some time and is easy to maintain. We should also consider how people will move through the space, to avoid 'desire lines' being repeatedly trodden through any planting and grass.​
Stunning meadow views from the back garden, which we will keep open so that we can still enjoy them after planting along this boundary for privacy within the Rose Garden.
Considering plant options
​​
To determine which plants will thrive in the garden, we need to consider the soil.
On our plot, we typically have heavy clay soil, but some areas contain some rubble and gravel, due to human interference throughout the history of the plot. For example, previous owners removed a low brick wall from the front of the property and proceeded to dump much of the rubble alongside the house within the area that we intend to turn into the Rose Garden! It isn't possible to excavate the site fully with a digger due to the presence of underground pipework that leads to a cesspit at the bottom of our plot, so all the preparation work will be manual. We will continue to improve the soil over the next few years, removing rubble as it reaches the surface during cultivation and by mulching the beds, but we are mindful that there are parts of the final flowerbed where some rubble and gravel will remain for some time because removal by manual digging will never be as through as a full excavation. Thankfully, roses are reasonably tolerant of poor soil, so these parts of the bed should not be too much of a problem for the Rose Garden, as long as we choose our plants sensitively. For example, we should be mindful that these areas of the bed are likely to be more free-draining, which may be a bonus in the Winter months due to the tendency for clay to become waterlogged in persistent wet weather. However, in drier Summer months, these parts of the bed may dry out quickly.
​
Having tested the pH of the soil, we are aware that the pH of our soil is neutral in this part of the plot. This gives us broad choice in terms of plants because our soil is neither extremely alkaline or acidic.
​
Regarding sunlight, most of that plot can be considered to provide full sun in the Summer months, as it receives direct sunlight for the entire afternoon. However, microclimates always exist within any plot; for example, the movement of shadows across the plot will not be the same for all parts of the plot, and areas closer to the house will be more sheltered from extreme weathers. These factors need to be considered when planning the planting scheme, and even the plants that we select will create microclimates for other plants, such as shadows cast by climbing roses as they grow. All these factors need to be considered when designing the planting scheme and selecting the plants for different positions.
​
To solve the issue of privacy along the boundary with the meadow, where we currently only have a paddock fence, we should consider hedging. Evergreen hedging will provide year-round interest and increase biodiversity when compared to the existing paddock fence. I also hope that the hedging would help to retain the scents within this garden during the summer months by making it more enclosed and sheltered. It should also help protect the garden against the increasingly frequent high wind speeds that we witness across the UK, by helping to filter the winds, rather than deflecting them (as in the case of solid fencing).
​
Finally, we should also consider year round interest when planning the planting, due to the fact that this garden is visible from so many rooms in the house, and for the sake of providing more use to wildlife in the Winter months. Perhaps the inclusion of some self-seeding biennials would help provide some ground cover through the Winter months, and some careful selection of evergreen or semi-evergreen plants might keep some structure and interest when the soil would otherwise be bare, while providing cover for small mammals. Seed heads and Winter berries would also benefit wildlife in Winter.
Gravel and rubble runs alongside the house, and along the far edge of the planned Rose Garden plot. The rubble and gravel were dumped directly onto/into the ground so it is full weeds.
Considering colours
​​
I always think that relaxed cottage gardens look their best when filled with colour. Muted whites and greens look incredible and very classy within shade gardens, Japanese gardens, and in modern courtyards, but my heart is definitely in favour of colour for our cottage-style Rose Garden. It will be fun to play with different colours, and whatever we plant will be more beautiful than the existing scrubby lawn and rubble!​
Contrasting and warm, bold colours often bring me great joy.
Summary
​​
Key design aspects to fulfil:
-
Colourful planting​
-
Scent in Summer
-
An enclosed garden 'room'
-
Privacy from adjacent meadow
-
Storage and associated access
-
Planting to suit neutral clay soil, with some more free-draining areas
-
Some Winter interest to prevent totally bare soil in Winter​