The rose's thorny crown is threatened by the perceived difficulty of keeping her, writes Jane Powers
Those of us who thought that roses were dead in contemporary garden design were pleasantly surprised at this year's Chelsea Flower Show. They were very much alive and well in the garden that won the Best in Show award, Christopher Bradley-Hole's "Hortus Conclusus", designed for Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan.
The enclosed space, a modern take on an early Islamic garden, featured 22 different roses, all old-fashioned shrub or species varieties, and almost all noted for their remarkable scent. Among them were the dusky-purple moss rose, 'William Lobb'; the crimson, flat-faced Gallica, 'Charles de Mills'; and 'Louise Odier' a Bourbon with pinky lilac, quartered blooms.
But these roses were growing in a way that we are not used to seeing them in gardens. They were jumbled in among the other plants, a wild-looking bunch of perennials and grasses. The ever-fashionable, cerise pin-cushion Knautia macedonica, a delicate little wine-coloured aquilegia, hardy geraniums and tufts of grasses twined and tumbled through them.
The rose, so often given a superior position because it's the queen of flowers, was just another plant in this garden, of no greater stature or importance than those surrounding it. The queen had taken off her crown and mingled with the masses, not just shaking their hands, but clapping them on the back and gathering them into her thorny arms. Such casual behaviour suited her.
The relaxed-looking (but actually highly skilled) pockets of planting were partially concealed behind walls of hornbeam hedging, so that only glimpses were revealed. It was like peeking into an overgrown garden that had been handed back to nature.
The planting scheme was a bold demonstration that roses fit in perfectly with today's naturalistic style. But they have to be the right kind of roses. Modern roses, such as stiff hybrid teas, or overly showy floribundas don't have the required informality. And while Christopher Bradley-Hole opted for old-fashioned shrub roses for many of his key positions, most of these are not repeat-flowering (or "remontant", if you want a word to impress the next rosarian you meet).
David Austin's so-called English roses might be more suitable candidates to merge into a perennials-and-grasses scheme in a real garden (rather than in a Chelsea week-long wonder). They have more than one flush of bloom, and they mimic the looser growth habits and romantic flower shapes of old roses.
Like the old roses, they are also swoon-makingly fragrant. They have been developed by the British breeder since the 1940s, when he began to cross modern roses with old varieties. 'Constance Spry', with its huge, pink, cupped blooms was the first of his cultivars to be introduced, in 1961. There are now about 100 available. And while old roses are notorious for falling foul of pests and diseases, David Austin's introductions are generally more resistant.
My own expertise in rose cultivation is, I must admit, not anything to write home about (or even write here about). I have more rose corpses on my hands than living specimens. I blame our terribly dry soil, which prevents the roots from having the cool, moist run that they prefer. I also blame my blindness to plants when they are at the back of the border. The only roses of which I'm not ashamed are in plain view, where they can be easily seen, and attended to, when needs be. And as one of them was a gift, there is the matter of respect for the donor that keeps me on my toes.
Most professional growers insist that it is essential to spray roses with chemicals to keep them healthy. The queen of flowers is prone to a long list of disfiguring diseases and pests: black spot, powdery mildew, downy mildew, rust, aphids, caterpillars and sawflies to mention a few.
Nonetheless, a joint initiative of the National Trust and HDRA (the UK organic organisation) aims to find out if blemish-free roses can be grown successfully without using chemicals. "Organic Rose Watch" was launched at the Chelsea Flower Show, and is a survey of gardeners which aims to find out what varieties people plant, how they grow them, and what problems they are susceptible to. Most importantly, it hopes to learn how amateur growers control pests and diseases. Perhaps it will even unearth a natural and safe cure for blackspot or aphids.
You don't have to be organic to partake, as all information will be used to build up a picture of the state of roses today. Laboratory and glasshouse experiments and field trials will follow on from the survey.
Already, some gardeners are finding that a range of everyday substances have fungicidal properties, and help prevent their roses from succumbing to disease. Among them are baking soda, compost tea and diluted milk. The key, apparently, is to spray before the symptoms appear. I can't speak from experience, as I am too lazy to treat my roses with anything other than a mulch of well-rotted manure in spring. But the word among reputable organic gardeners is that these remedies, if applied properly, do work.
And if you're a gardener with that most pernicious of weeds, horsetail, you'll be pleased to know that there is use for this garden horror. Biodynamic growers use equisitum tea, made from horsetail, to help strengthen their plants' defences against disease. Instructions can be found on HDRA's website, on the blackspot fact sheet.
The search for alternative methods is an earnest one. Roses UK, an organisation representing British growers and breeders, is worried that if effective and safe controls are not found, more and more gardeners will choose not to grow roses, which would be a very sad thing. Although she may give more problems than any other flower, we'd hate the Queen to relinquish her thorny crown. jpowers@irish-times.ie
Find out more about David Austin's roses at: www.davidaustinroses.com.
You can download an Organic Rose Watch survey form from www.hdra.org.uk. Or write to The Organic Rose Watch, HDRA, Ryton Organic Gardens, Coventry, CV8 3LG, England.