While there’s some time to go before our big Hever in Bloom event (24 June – 7th July), we are beginning to turn our attention to the roses in the garden.
New roses
As long as you ensure they’re well-watered before you plant them, there’s still time to introduce some new roses in your beds in May. Ahead of Hever in Bloom we have been inspired by the two sisters of Hever Castle – Mary and Anne Boleyn. We chose two ‘sister’ roses to feature in two new borders: Timeless Cream and the regal Timeless Purple – both related to each other, like Anne and Mary. Timeless Cream is an absolute stunner and Timeless Purple delivers the drama!
The Boleyn sisters are not the only women to inspire the rose planting at Hever. Close to Two Sisters’ Lawn, the shrub rose garden contains beautiful single-flowering roses grown by the poet Emily Dickinson in her Homestead garden in New England.
The addition of the Emily Dickinson-inspired shrub rose border was inspired by Hever’s owner Mrs Guthrie, who is a great fan of the poet’s work.
New additions
If you’re looking for an aromatic rose then Buff Beauty is a good one – a hybrid musk raised from roses bred by the Rev Joseph Pemberton. After retiring from his church in Romford, Essex, the Reverend dedicated his life to breeding fragrant roses. This large rose has a pink/red foliage and soft-apricot flowers.
Black spot
You can avoid this blighting your display by selecting certain types of roses: for example, trailing roses, gallicas, rugosas and albas are not affected by it. They are heat-tolerant roses that have evolved on poor, drier soil and will flower for you in June. There’s still time to buy and plant these and begin to enjoy the flowers in June/July.
Older rose varieties are prone to blackspot, whereas modern repeat-flowering roses can be bomb-proof, such as Champagne Moment or Peach Melba by Kordes. Lark Ascending by David Austin is also a good one.
If you are beginning to see the effects of blackspot on your roses in May, make sure you are the tidiest of gardeners and pick up any fallen leaves – this is how the fungus spreads from year to year. Then, once you get to November, cut back, take off all the foliage and, in the new year, mulch around the roses, creating a barrier between the soil and the rose stems.
Green fly or white fly
I’m often stopped in the Rose Garden and asked about white fly: my answer is always the same – stand back and let Mother Nature do her thing. Ladybirds will hoover them up for you and blue tits enjoy collecting them for their fledglings. Don’t spray the aphids, this will kill the white fly predators and prevent the birds from thriving too.
Hever in Bloom
The Hever Rose (left) and Rosa Rhapsody
While it’s still six weeks away, why not pull out your diaries and pencil in visiting Hever in Bloom? We’ve doubled our blooming workshops and tours this year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of one of our peak flowering times of the year.
You can find out more about the four-acre Rose Garden and over 5,000 blooms during the event. Garden tours take place twice a day during weeks one and two (11:30 and 14:00) and once at weekends (11:30) with the gardening team. In week one you can also watch a 30-minute floral demonstration, to learn how to create a handtied flower arrangement using seasonal blooms.
Visit the Hever Castle website for more information about Hever in Bloom.
You can read Neil’s past columns here.
