Summer Movies 2015: Roses for the Garden

In this program, Penelope Hobhouse visits gardens that feature heirloom roses;  and interviews the English rosarian, David Austin, who cross bred old and new roses to create rose shrubs that bloom more than once. He gives a brief history of the fall and rise of heirloom roses in England, centering on Graham Stuart Thomas, who is credited with helping to save old roses from extinction.

Hobhouse starts in her own garden in Bettiscombe, where she incorporates roses in her design. Her garden is small, so she uses vertical climbers, which provide accents without taking up space. She also uses roses as shrubs and hedges with other plants, which she calls companion planting.

Next Hobhouse visits the water garden at Mottisfont Abbey, an old monastery in Hampshire. In the 1970s, Graham Stuart Thomas incorporated roses from his collection into the walled garden of the Abbey. From the garden you glimpse the countryside over the wall, and old roses inside the wall. The old apple trees in the orchard serve as trellises for climbers. Hobhouse interviews garden writer, Patrick Taylor, at Mottisfont about old roses.

Lastly, Hobhouse visits Lower Hall in Worfield, a private garden that also grows old, heirloom roses. Lower Hall is a large, timber-framed farmhouse from the mid-16th century, with a four-acre garden developed in 1965. The garden is walled, and includes a stream. Hobhouse interviews garden designer, nurseryman, and writer, John Scarman, who points out several ancient roses and indicates they are growing in similar conditions as they were grown 7000 years ago. 

I love the innovative use of roses in these gardens. There is not a "rose bed" in sight; instead, roses are integrated into the garden design. Sometimes the roses take center stage with their blooms, other times of the year they take a back seat to their companion plants. Some are used as hedges and bushes. Climbing and rambling roses are integrated with other plantings, running up a wall or over an embankment in a flow of fragrant flowers. Old roses only bloom once, but they continue to produce new clusters of buds, sometimes blooming all through the summer months.