My Autumn Project

My Autumn Project

On the north side of the house is the courtyard and this was the site for my latest project. On the opposite side of the courtyard away from the house lies a border where I grow a small collection of roses.  This bed is backed by a dry stone boundary wall, two medium sized holly trees (shaped every winter) and two large Scots pine. 

From early May until October this rose bed is a wonderful display of colour from delicate clusters of pure white to dark cerise blooms heavy with heady perfume.  I have planted here mainly shrub roses – such as Rosa Anthony, Charlotte, Robert le Diable as well as a few ramblers which I have transplanted from elsewhere in the garden (I don't know their names).

Over the years I have experimented with various ways of companion planting for the rose bushes - hardy geraniums, alchemilla mollis, ferns, hostas - I think I have tried just about everything and I have never been really happy with any of the results as you can see here the border looks very miserable in early spring.  I felt like trying something different.

Following a autumnal trip to Thorpe Perrow Arboretum in Yorkshire, I wanted to reproduce their fantastic range of stunning autumn and winter colours.  Shrubs were out of the question as I felt that the roses would be sufficient to provide bulk to the area, this meant I was limited to perennials.  It is very easy to put together a list of perennials which provide colour through autumn-winter-spring but one has to experiment to see which one will actually thrive in situ. 

I started by interspersing the roses with cyclamen in groups of three.

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I then dotted about a few members of the aster family including symphyotrichum novi-belgii  and novi-angliae for early autumn colour.  Here and there at the front of the border some erica carnea  and calluna vulgaris.  

To finish off  persicaria macrophela “Purple Fantasy”. 

and persicaria macrophela “Red Dragon” (I think), likewise the tones are beautiful in Red Dragon and are further illuminated when the sun shines on the plant.

Heucheras, trailing heuchera, heucherella and a very small specimen of rudbeckia Goldstrum were also planted to the front.

I know a lot people grow cornus and acer for autumn winter colour and I did try growing three cornus flaviouruous a few years back; I have to admit that in the winter they out shone anything in the garden but for the rest of the year they were just boring green shrubs -  I have enough of those in the garden already.  I’m hoping that as the plants in this bed mature they will clump up and not look so small and weedy. I shall be interested to see what the effect will be in the years to come. 

The rose border in summer.