Visit to Mottisfont Abbey

9th July 2019 and a visit to see the roses at Mottisfont in Hampshire. It was informative and enjoyable - so many ideas regarding how best to show roses off, how even a single flowering rose can give you more than one season of interest and how other perennials can work amongst them. As always with a garden visit, after 3 hours your head aches and there's almost no more you can take in without a serious injection of caffeine and flapjack (or similar)! Below are just a handful of photos that gave me pause for thought. The Clematis are both in Group 2 to 3 for pruning and impressed me with how happily they were looped to the trunks of apple trees and making their way around and flowering very well. The bottom Clematis is Clematis 'Ascotiensis' and is an old variety from the 1800s which is apparently often forgotten but flowers reliably and profusely later in the summer (Jackmanii type). The C. 'Emelia Plater' is a viticella clematis I think and glowed beneath the tree's canopy.

The Catananche is a perennial that I know of for a sunny well drained site, but I'd never seen it flowering before and it is lovely and covered with bees. A great idea of those tricky front of border spots in full sun. There were many roses that recommended themselves but Rosa 'Vesuve' was one I loved but acknowledged was too big for me. I really admired its shape and open growth but have a feeling that it might not be completely disease resistant.

I still struggle to know how best to approach the pruning of old and species roses - you want them to make hips for you so strictly speaking, no pruning until the spring? The hips weren't good in all cases so there is a strong element, as with all things in gardening, of working with them, seeing how they grow and then setting reminders accordingly as to the best time to help them out!