This Rose Garden, originally designed by one of the Waterperry School of Horticulture’s original girls, Mary Spiller over 25 years ago is currently undergoing redevelopment with replanting commencing in the Spring.

We are trying an innovative and environmentally conscious approach to the rose garden’s renovation.

The basic plan is that in order to combat the effects of ‘rose plant sickness’, a rather mysterious ailment, the symptoms of which are that some roses don’t do well after about 15 to 20 years of being planted in the same place, we are swapping the beds for the paths and the paths for the beds. This gives us a rather limited choice of bed design but we will do our best to create an inspirational garden.

The old roses have been dug out and removed. The new beds have been marked out and the turf cut off. This turf has been used to cover the old beds as much as possible to form the new paths. Any of the old beds that we have not been able to turf we have seeded with grass seed. The new beds have then been ‘double-dug’ and lots of organic matter introduced to get them ready for planting the new roses.

New gates have been installed to keep the deer and rabbits out. Some new paving will be laid.

Eleven new galvanised steel obelisks have been ordered to train the new climbing roses up.

Most importantly the new roses have been delivered and will soon be planted. They have been carefully selected and curated by the head gardener and horticultural manager for colour, scent, interest and disease resistance.