Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
Thank goodness for that - only having lived within striking distance of this Tudor House, Walled Garden and Parkland just down the A3 between Guildford and Godalming - for nigh on 19 years - we got there! And we were not disappointed. This is a busy estate and a very busy wedding venue - so…
The Gardens at David Austin Roses, Albrigton, Shropshire They may have been battered by the rains but how beautiful are these gardens still! A veritable riot of colour, in beds and borders, along paths and clothing walls and clambering up and over pillars. Every conceivable space is festooned. Walls have climbers and ramblers flowering from…
After a cycle ride along the towpath and the Thames sparkling in the sunshine, and nearly being late for taking so many photographs, a look in the Kitchen Garden first, which was the vegetable garden but has been co-opted into an additional Cutting Garden, as well as having the peony beds, Hellebores, many old roses…
Between the rain showers yesterday, a tour around the two rose gardens at RHS Wisley - these are all from the first, the Jubilee Rose Garden, which features roses planted among roses and more roses (no herbaceous planting here, not allowed at all). The next gallery will feature the planting in the Bowes Lyon Rose…
This long pergola with brick pillars and timber beams is clothed with some beautifully trained rambling and climbing roses. Beautiful monsters like Rosa filipes Kiftsgate ought to swamp the entire structure and much else besides but with the love and careful treatment these specimens are given, a multitude of flowers hug the cross beams and…
A pilgrimage to these gardens, for which, so far as the roses are concerned, we have Graham Stuart Thomas to thank principally and for the last 40+ years, the National Trust for preserving and enhancing his original collection of Old Roses. Mottisfont holds the National Collection of Shrub Roses. I met Jonny Bass, the head…
Continue reading ➞ A return to Mottisfont Abbey; an Old Rose Pilgrimage
Two pieces here, very wordy (though by no means not all my words) first from the RHS Magazine, followed by a wander through their Pruning and Training Book. Quite a lot that you might need to know about pruning summer-flowering and repeat-flowering Old Roses, what I still call Hybrid Teas and Floribunda roses, Climbers and…
Continue reading ➞ Rose Pruning Masterclass – with a little help from my friends….
Already halfway through here - I began yesterday afternoon but didn't have my camera with me, so the full extent of the transformation will be a little understated. This rose, which we believe is Olivia Stone, a Harkness rose, was a towering thing, flowering at 8' to 10', more even, and a dense thicket of…
Continue reading ➞ Practical Classes in Rose Pruning
My lovely neighbour Penny has a lovely rose in her front garden - of course it would Penny Lane - and here she is (the rose that is..). Later in the year, she will have honey and apricot tones but at the moment, it is a lovely soft pink. Large blooms, carried singly and in…
Continue reading ➞ My neighbour Penny’s Penny Lane Rose
The Teddington Gardener 