creating a rose bed
rosenovice
Posts: 2
Help!! I have a plot of garden that is 36ft by 5ft 8inch and want to create a rose bed. There is a stone wall down the 36ft side and I thought I would plant a rambling Snow Goose to go over the wall, there is also a rose arch over a pathway and I thought that a Gerturde Jekyl either side of that would be nice. And thats about as far as I've got with the planning stage. I would like strong scented and lots of coloured roses. Any advice on planting distances between roses, bare rooted roses versus potted roses, where to buy roses,in fact any advice at all would be much appreciated.
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Roses are hungry so make sure you prepare the soil well by adding in plenty of well rotted manure and garden compost to add nutrients and improve texture. Before you plant your climbing or rambling roses, make sure you screw in supports such as vine eyes to hold tensioned wires horizontally between them at 15 inch intervals. You then tie in the stems - loosely for growth - as horizontally as possible to get as many flowers as possible.
Snow Goose will only grow to 8' so you'll need 4 to cover that wall.
Gertrude Jekyll is a gorgeous rose with strong perfume but she also has vicious thorns so you may want to re-think having her either side of an arch that people walk through.
Planting distances depend on the eventual width of your chosen roses - eg 4' wide means 4' apart so each rose can achieve its circumference without being pushed for space. The David Austin website offers plenty of info on colours, perfume and sizes of its roses. Have a look also at Harkness and Peter Beale's altho ordering from just one site is more likely to get you a discount for bulk or special off
Thank you for that Obelixx I would never have thought of putting tension wires horizontally. I have read a lot of reports praising the perfume of Gertrude Jekyll which is why I was thinking of that one. its not a very narrow arch so it may be worth taking the chance of the odd scratch from something so nice. When I was at the local garden centre I was told that Snow Goose would spread 30ft and that it has a good fragrance, so thats why I was going for that. I'll definitely have to rethink that one. I will have a look on the websites you mentioned. Thank you again.
DA says height 8' for Snow Goose but maybe it spreads further when it's trained. I suggest you ask DA via the website. They're happy to answer questions.