BRITAIN’S GOT GARDENS
Wynyard Hall is one of the UK’s newest and most exciting rose gardens – enjoy a peek!
The rose is the queen of summer – voluptuous, beautiful and fragrant – so it’s no surprise that some of our best gardens are dedicated to her.
One of the newest is the Walled Garden at Wynyard Hall, near Stockton-on-Tees in Co Durham, within which 3,000 roses fill the air with heady scent.
Like many contemporar y rose gardens, Wynyard’s offering features a naturalistic planting style of roses combined with perennials and grasses. As well as looking good, this approach provides food for bees and butterflies and reduces pests and disease.
Owner Sir John Hall – a proper ty developer who was once Chairman of Newcastle United FC – has loved roses from a young age and had long held a dream of having his own rose garden. He was so passionate about it that the garden’s budget was £1.6m!
His roses grow in the four-acre 19th centur y walled garden at Wynyard, thriving within a design created by landscape architect Alistair W Baldwin.
Inspired by the geometric layout and water elements of ancient Islamic gardens, as well as the traditional beds of British walled and kitchen gardens, Alistair created a grid of raised beds alongside pools and rills.
The 3,000-strong planting includes 135 types of rose. The majority are English roses such as ‘Lady Of Shalott’, ‘The Poet’s Wife’ and ‘Thomas à Becket’ – but there are also old roses, including the white rambler ‘Adélaïde d’Orléans’ and the wonderful pink shrub ‘Comte de Chambord’.
The roses grow amid a tapestr y of perennials such as nepeta, veronicastrum, phlomis, astrantia, lythrum and helenium, and grasses including sesleria, miscanthus and stipa. Beautiful planting combinations abound, such as pink roses alongside orange geums and purple salvias.
To offset all the softness, structure is provided by sharply trimmed plants (hornbeam, yew and beech) and obelisks for compact climbing roses. If you need inspiration for your own garden or simply want to enjoy the sight and smell of roses, visit Wynyard later this summer if you can.
Wynyard Hall Gardens are open daily and have disabled access.
● For more information call 01740 665415 or go to wynyardhall.co.uk