Roses Archives - Garden To Vase

For the flower grower, June is the month of the rose. Along with the peonies, columbine, foxglove, and bearded iris, here on the Northern hemisphere, it’s undoubtedly one of the best times of the year in the cutting garden.

It goes without saying that we want to have as many blooms as possible in the cutting garden. In the rose patch, part of this comes down to selecting the right roses. That means choosing roses that are floriferous, will grow well in your zone and microclimate and are in-demand. But also means in choosing roses by their bloom cycle.

Some roses will bloom once in the late spring. These are called ‘once-flowering’ roses. And there are a few roses that will bloom non-stop throughout the growing season. These are called ‘continuous-flowering’ roses.

‘Repeat-flowering’ roses are in between – they produce multiple flushes of blooms starting in late spring all the way through till frost (although their subsequent flushes will not usually be as abundant as their first).

Continuous-flowering roses sound like the holy grail for the cut flower grower, however, the volume of roses they produce throughout the season will be roughly equivalent to what a repeat-flowering rose will produce in their primary flush.

So for the cut-flower grower looking for a continuous supply of blooms, repeat-flowering roses are indispensable. The good news is that most modern shrub roses, including most David Austin roses, are repeat-flowering.

Some of my favorite repeat-flowering roses include:

Boscobel
Abraham Darby
Leander
Crown Princess Margareta
A Shropshire Lad

A few others I love are Tranquility, Jude the Obscure, Distant Drum, Honeymoon, Koko Loco, and Claire Austin.

Below are some images of how I’ve used them in arrangements, and a few things you need to have in place in order for them to keep blooming.

Repeat-Flowering Roses image

This is a bowl of three of my favorite repeat-flowering roses, Boscobel (the dark pink rose), and Crown Princess Margareta (the orange rose), and Evelyn (peachy pink).

Repeat-Flowering Roses

Tucked into the right side of this arrangement is Leander, a glorious spray shrub rose that has wonderful, medium-sized mid-toned pink blooms. On the left, Crown Princess Margareta tumbles out of the front.

A single multi-bloomed stem of Crown Princess Margareta on the left of this arrangement.

An arrangement with Abraham Darby, Boscobel and Crown Princess Margareta.

Crown Princess Margareta

To get the most out of your roses, here are a few tips:

All roses need a great home in the garden, with deep, rich, well-drained soil, but this is especially true for repeat-flowering roses.
Winter pruning (and training in the case of climbers like A Shropshire Lad) is essential.
Dead-head spent blooms.
Feed and water regularly throughout the growing season (foliar feeding is a great option), and remember that roses typically require more food and water than other shrubs or perennials.

Did you know that David Austin offers free design services for planning a rose garden?!

I discovered this in their catalogue recently and the timing couldn’t have been better. With a bunch of new roses about to arrive and the desire to move some old ones, I needed help.

Here’s what I submitted to David Austin:

Hello!

Here is the list of roses I’ll be working with (total 17):

Evelyn Climber x 2
Evelyn Shrub x 5
Crown Princess Margherita x 3
Leander x 2
Wildeve x 2
Abraham Darby x 3

About the space:

It’s a border alongside a 7’ high fence, the bed is 6’6” wide x 56’ long.
The bed curves, facing east and south in roughly equal proportions (the eastern section gets late day shade).
The other plants I’d like to incorporate include: a few flowering shrubs (1 of each lilac, mock orange, nine bark, hydrangea) as well as lots of ornamental alliums (drumstick + bulgaricum), and a few perennials (approx 10 each of heuchera, columbine, astrantia).
I have some clematis that I’d like to incorporate with the climbers including Duchess of Edinburgh x 3, Ville de Lyon x 1 + Alpina x 3 + Tangutica x 1.
I like an informal style. The garden is a cutting garden so I’d like to be able to access the plants at the back of the border without too much trouble (I’ve been wondering if it would be best to not put thorny roses at the front of the border for example).
The image below shows you most of the bed (there’s a bit more on the left of the image).

I hope that helps!

Designing a Rose Garden with the help of David Austin

Below is what I received from the wonderful Michael Marriott of David Austin Roses:

Hello Clare,

Thank you very much for your email asking for help in designing your rose border. Please find below a planting scheme which I hope you like. I started off by trying to include all the plants you listed but soon realized that there wasn’t enough space and so have left out all of the flowering shrubs as they all potentially grow big and take up a lot of space.

As you say it is for cutting, the roses are spaced fairly well apart although having said that with the exception of Evelyn which is reasonably upright all will become quite large spreading bushes. You will see that I have suggested using both Leander and one of the Crown Princess Margareta as climbers as they are both vigorous and will be better for being trained. The spaces in between the roses are for you to fill with the perennials – all the ones you listed will look very lovely with the roses. as a general guide line it is important not to plant perennials right at the base of roses as they will take the lion’s share of water and nutrients leaving little for the roses. Some though could be planted right at the front of the border in front of the roses. You will though have to take into consideration accessing the roses and clematis at the back.

You will see I have put three of the clematis in between the roses quite close to the roses so that they can have the chance of growing through them without overwhelming them. C. tangutica I have left out as it is very vigorous best grown into a tree.

I was interested to look at your website – it is very lovely. Do let me know if you need any more help with the roses,

Best Wishes Michael

How fabulous. Thank you so much Michael and the folks at David Austin for offering such an invaluable resource.

To learn more about David Austin roses, click here.