Designing a Cottage Garden with Repeat Flowering Roses

Why repeat flowering roses belong in a cottage garden

The traditional cottage garden had one quiet flaw: for six glorious weeks in June it was unbeatable, and then it rather ran out of steam. Once the old once-flowering roses and the bearded irises had finished, the border sat about looking tired until the dahlias arrived. Repeat flowering roses solve that problem beautifully.

These are the roses that bloom in early summer, rest briefly, then flower again in waves until the first hard frosts. In a mild autumn you can be cutting blooms well into October, sometimes November. They give the loose, generous look we all associate with cottage planting, but they keep doing it for four or five months rather than four or five weeks.

If you are planning a new border or reworking an old one, building the scheme around two or three repeat flowering roses gives you a backbone. Everything else — the spires, the froth, the scent — can then be arranged around them.

Choosing roses that will flower again and again

Look for the words repeat flowering, remontant or continuously flowering on the label. Within that group you have plenty of choice, and the differences matter when you are placing them.

• English and shrub roses are the most useful for cottage gardens. They tend to be full-petalled, heavily scented and relaxed in habit — 'Gertrude Jekyll', 'Desdemona' and 'Olivia Rose Austin' are all generous repeaters with good fragrance.
• Floribundas carry flowers in clusters and flower almost without pause. 'Iceberg' is the classic white, and it shrugs off most conditions.
• Hybrid musks such as 'Penelope' and 'Buff Beauty' are the most cottage of all: soft apricot and cream, arching stems, a scent that carries across the garden, and hips in autumn.
• Repeat flowering climbers will cover a shed or arch if you want height without sacrificing the second flush.

If blackspot has been a problem in your garden before, spend a little time choosing resistant cultivars rather than fighting the inevitable. It is far less work than spraying.

Planting partners: foxgloves, catmint and lavender

The trick to a relaxed cottage scheme is contrast in shape as well as colour. Roses give you rounded, blowsy shapes; you need vertical spires and low, hazy mounds around them.

• Foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) are the perfect vertical. They are biennial, so let a few set seed and they will wander through the border on their own. Plant them 30–45cm behind the rose so the spires rise through the flowers. They flower in early summer, exactly as the rose's first flush opens.
• Catmint (Nepeta) is the best rose companion there is. 'Six Hills Giant' will knit around the base of a shrub rose and soften its bare legs. Shear it back by half after its first flush and it will flower again alongside the rose's second.
• Lavender wants sun, sharp drainage and a lean soil, so keep it towards the front of the border, away from the rich feeding the roses enjoy. 'Hidcote' is compact and deeply coloured.

Round it out with lady's mantle, hardy geraniums, salvia and a few annuals such as nigella or cornflower, and you have a border that changes week by week without ever looking empty.

Getting the planting right

Cottage gardens are informal, not careless. Plant bare-root roses between November and March if you can; containerised roses will establish at any time, provided you water them through their first summer.

Set shrub roses roughly 60–90cm apart and give climbers a metre of clear wall or fence. Dig a hole wider than it is deep, fork the base, and mix in two or three spadefuls of well-rotted manure plus a handful of grit if your soil is heavy clay. Plant so the graft union sits just below soil level, firm well, and water in thoroughly.

Mulch 5–7cm deep each March with composted bark or manure, keeping it clear of the stems. This suppresses weeds, holds moisture and, usefully, reduces the splash that spreads blackspot spores up onto the leaves.

Feeding, pruning and deadheading for a long season

Repeat flowering only works if the plant has the energy to do it. Feed with a balanced rose fertiliser as the first buds swell in spring, then again immediately after the first flush fades. Stop feeding by the end of July so the new growth can harden before winter.

Deadhead regularly, cutting back to a strong outward-facing bud just above a five-leaflet leaf. This directs energy into fresh flowers rather than hips. Once the second flush finishes in late September, ease off and let some hips form — they look lovely with the autumn foliage.

Prune shrub roses in late February or early March, removing old, weak and crossing stems and shortening the rest by about a third. Climbers get a lighter tidy in autumn and their main prune in winter. A fortnightly check for aphids is usually enough; a firm jet of water or a resident ladybird population will deal with most of them.

Bringing the garden indoors

Cut roses in the early morning, when the stems are full of water. Strip the lower leaves, split the woody base of each stem about 2cm with a sharp knife, and stand them in deep, cool water for a few hours before arranging.

For a cottage look, work in odd numbers and mix heights rather than making a tight dome. A jug of 'Buff Beauty' with catmint, a few lavender stems and some alchemilla is hard to beat. Keep the vase out of direct sun and change the water daily — you will get a week, sometimes more.