A HAMPSHIRE property's rose garden is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
At Mottisfont, more than 1,000 individual rose plants bloom in the walled garden during peak season
This year, the National Trust is celebrating 50 years since the collection was brought to Mottisfont and the garden team is preparing it to face climate challenges.
The property is offering extended opening hours on some evenings during rose season. On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays May 30 to June 29 the gardens will be open until 8pm.
People can enjoy celebration evenings on June 7, 14, and 21 with live jazz from the FB Pocket Orchestra, plus wine tastings and wine for sale from award-winning Hampshire vineyard Black Chalk.
Head gardener Rob Ballard said: “I am very much looking forward to seeing the results of the huge amount of work the garden team has put into pruning so many individual rose plants and nurturing the garden in preparation for the flowering season. We're excited to welcome you all to enjoy scent and colours of the rose garden in its 50th year.”
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There are more than 400 varieties of rose bloom in Mottisfont’s walled gardens, including Rosa ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ inspired by the Empress Josephine’s famous garden.
Ancient varieties include Rosa ‘Gallica Officinalis’, a light crimson and deeply scented shrub brought to England from Persia by the Crusaders, and the highly scented ‘Quatre Saisons’, an autumn damask which was grown by the Romans.
The rose gardens were created by Graham Stuart Thomas - one of the most important figures in 20th-century British horticulture - in the 1970s. Mottisfont’s walled gardens were chosen to house many varieties of rose that may otherwise have been lost.
People enter through Mottisfont’s recently revived Kitchen Garden, where two beds of eleven different types of rose provide a modern introduction to the hundreds found beyond. Walkway arbours are decorated with four varieties of climbing rose, based on Graham Stuart Thomas’s choice of companion roses.
Within the central garden, deep box-lined borders are full of rambling roses, while climbing varieties are trained on the high brick wall behind. The main paths crossing the site converge on a central round pond and fountain, surrounded by eight clipped Irish yews.
To prepare for the summer show, more than 40 tonnes of Mottisfont’s homemade compost is spread throughout the walled garden, feeding the soil below.
Many of the roses which bloom within the gardens can be found for sale within Mottisfont’s plant centre, and people can try rose-flavoured ice cream inspired by the gardens, created by Hampshire ice cream makers Jude’s.
For more information about Mottisfont, visit nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/hampshire/mottisfont or call 01794 340757.
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