The Rose Year Begins
As the garden settles for the season, the rose gardener’s year is only just beginning.
Fall brings a distinct richness that invites us to slow down and notice the changes. Leaves turn shades of amber and gold, while the lower, softer light catches the borders in the late afternoon. As cooler mornings bring heavy dew and that unmistakable, earthy scent of damp soil, the garden gradually settles down for the season.
It’s a season of small, familiar pleasures. Pulling on a favourite sweater before heading outside. An hour spent tidying a border, followed by the warmth of coming back indoors as the light begins to fade. Pausing over a last rose that has opened late, its fragrance caught briefly on the cooler air. These final blooms feel especially precious, gentle reminders of the summer just gone.
A Season of Endings, and Beginnings
It would be easy to see fall as the close of the gardening year. Much of the garden is, after all, preparing to rest. Yet for the rose gardener, something new is only just beginning.
Fall is the time to start looking ahead, choosing bare root roses and imagining where they might find a home in the garden. This is when the rose year truly begins: not with the first flush of summer flowers, but months earlier, with the simple pleasure of planning what is still to come.
The Pleasure of Planning
Choosing a rose for the year ahead is a hopeful thing. Perhaps there is a space in a border waiting to be filled, an arch that would be transformed by a climber, or a favourite corner where fragrance would be especially welcome.
There is time to consider the possibilities: colour and fragrance, shape and habit, and how each rose might sit amongst the plants already growing in the garden. Bare root roses can be pre-ordered now for delivery from February.
There is something rather lovely in choosing now for flowers that are still many months away. So much of gardening is about patience and anticipation, and fall gives us the pleasure of imagining the garden before it begins to grow again.
Our guide to planting bare root roses walks you through every step.
Perhaps this is the true pleasure of fall gardening. As one season draws gently to a close, we’re free to begin imagining the next. Borders brimming with colour. Roses catching the early morning light. Flowers opening one after another through the long days of summer.
Fall gives us time to reflect, too. To think back on what flourished this year, what surprised us, and which roses we’d happily find room for again. Thoughts turn to the small changes we might make: a new addition to a favourite border, a rose beside a well-used path, or perhaps a climber for that bare wall. The garden may be settling down, but our enjoyment of it never quite does.
Part of Something Shared
You won’t be planning alone. Each fall, rose gardeners everywhere begin looking ahead to another rose year, choosing bare root roses and imagining the flowers that will fill their gardens next summer. There is something rather special in knowing that, while gardens are settling down for the season, plans for the next are already quietly taking shape.
So enjoy the season as it unfolds, take a little time to plan, and look forward to everything still to come.
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The Rose Year BeginsFall brings a distinct richness that invites us to slow down and notice the changes. Leaves turn shades of amber and gold, while the lower, softer light catches the borders in the late afternoon. As cooler mornings bring heavy dew and that unmistakable, earthy scent of damp soil, the garden gradually settles down for the season.
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Roses with Large Blooms: Varieties for Garden ImpactA rose in full flower can transform a garden. Large, many-petalled blooms draw the eye through a border, bring colour to a quiet corner or create a beautiful focal point when grown in a pot.
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Best Fragrant Roses for Autumn: Scent and Colour Beyond SummerThe fragrance of a rose is never quite fixed. Temperature, humidity, time of day and even the stage of the flower can all influence how its scent is released and experienced. As the warmth of summer begins to soften into autumn, cooler mornings and greater moisture in the air create different conditions for fragrance, and a familiar rose can reveal itself in a rather different way.
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Using Red Roses to Bring Richness and Depth to the GardenA red rose has a wonderfully compelling presence in the garden. Amongst a sea of green, even a glimpse of crimson catches the eye, drawing you closer for another look. Red can sometimes have a reputation for being difficult to use, particularly alongside softer colours. Yet the palette is far more varied than we might first imagine. From clear crimson to deep, velvety tones, red roses can bring warmth, richness and depth to a garden without overwhelming it.
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Roses for the Last Night of the PromsThere are few evenings quite like the Last Night of the Proms. Familiar melodies fill the Royal Albert Hall, the audience joins in and music heard and loved for generations is given fresh life once more. This year’s programme got us thinking about the curious connections between music, stories and the names of some of our roses. From Elgar and the Malvern Hills to Britain’s long relationship with the sea, each offers a thread to follow from the concert hall into the garden.
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Climbing Roses for Arches, Obelisks and PillarsThere is always room for another rose. When borders are full, the answer is often simply to look upwards. Climbing roses can transform arches, obelisks and pillars into wonderfully abundant garden features, bringing flowers and fragrance to eye level and above. They can tumble over an entrance, rise from the middle of a border or soften a simple post with foliage and bloom. And, with the right rose and a little thoughtful training, they need surprisingly little ground space to make quite an impression.
