GARDENING
Rosa ‘Félicité Parmentier’ AGM Sheila Dearing
Rosa ‘Fellowship’ AGM Sheila Dearing
Summer fragrance There are many reasons for choosing one plant over another for your garden, but for me, fragrance is one of the deciding factors. Rosemoor is famous for its rose gardens and on a warm summer’s day, the air is heavy with the mingling scents of numerous rose varieties. Roses have a huge variety of fragrance types and the choice is overwhelming. You need to choose your roses when they are in flower so that you can smell them for yourself and not rely on the seller’s description; everyone’s sense of smell is slightly different and fragrance can change with the age of a flower and the weather. The Queen Mother’s Rose Garden is a good place to start your research, where massed plantings of modern roses bred since 1867 include floribunda and hybrid tea roses. Rosa ‘Fellowship’ AGM stands out as one of our best floribundas with bright orange flowers and a strong, sweet scent. As the name suggests, tea roses have a fragrance reminiscent of tea leaves and one of our favourites is R. ‘Britannia’ AGM. Heavily scented blooms open a pale pink and gold, darkening to a deeper peachy-orange. The Shrub Rose Garden has a wonderful mix of old fashioned roses including gallicas, albas, damasks and moss roses. R.’Félicité Parmentier’ AGM is a cross between an alba and
a damask rose. The fragrance of damask roses has been captured in rose water since ancient times. David Austin repeat flowering hybrids (‘English Roses’) with old rose characteristics, in particular scent, also feature in this garden. R. ‘Mary Rose’ is described as having an old rose scent with a hint of honey and almond blossom and the scent of R. ‘Rosemoor’ AGM is said to have hints of apple, cucumber and violet. This garden does not rely entirely on roses for scent, or indeed flowers; plantings of Teucrium, Calamantha, Salvia and Nepeta contribute aromatic oils from their foliage to the mix. Aromatic foliage cannot be underestimated and you will come across it throughout Rosemoor. Many of these plants are classed as herbs and come from areas of the world with a mediterranean climate. Apart from those already mentioned, look out for Santolina (e.g. in the Cool Garden), Helichrysum (Herb Garden) and Anthemis (Cottage Garden). Of course, The Mediterranean Garden has a large selection of plants with aromatic foliage and on warm summer days you can imagine that you are on holiday in Spain or France. Scented flowers have primarily evolved for the bees and butterflies, so if you choose a range of these plants, you will also attract pollinators and help provide forage for our ever
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