Gardens: A masterclass on roses

I have more than 60 different roses in my garden in Lochearnhead. Or at least I had last summer. One of the many reasons I love roses is that they are hardy and resilient to extremes of weather. But I shudder at the damage that's been done over the past few months.

I ordered eight more bare root roses including an Ayrshire Splendens late last autumn. They arrived in late December with the ground rock solid with frost. With no prospect of planting outside, they were placed in pots in the scullery, with top soil loosened by a pick axe. Even a pneumatic drill would have given up. By the start of February I was convinced none could have survived. But my heart leaped to discover earlier this month that each one was sprouting tiny shoots – testament to the durability of roses to the hardiest conditions.

But the beds are in an appalling state and the roses are now in need of pruning, feeding, potting and re-potting, nursing, general care and clearing up. Faced with this daunting task, I felt I had forgotten everything about roses that I'd ever known. Help was desperately needed.

It was soon at hand. When I saw that Peter Beales, one of the biggest rose nurseries in the world, with more than a quarter of a million bushes to tend, was holding a one-day rose planting and pruning course, I immediately applied. It didn't daunt me that this was a 300-mile journey to the tiny village of Attleborough in deepest Norfolk, that I would need a day to travel down and a day to return. There is only so much you can learn from books. And Peter Beales, famous for his old-fashioned classic roses, which I have admired for years, could not be a better tutor.

The course cost 70, lunch and afternoon tea in the on-site Sweet Briar Bistro included, and in more than 30 years of rose growing, it is the best investment I have ever made. No matter that much of it was assurance and confirmation rather than new learning, no matter the problems were familiar, or that the weather in this exposed part of East Anglia was little warmer than in Lochearnhead, I filled a notebook and left, not just more confident, but thoroughly inspired. I learned hard pruning, soft pruning, how to train climbers and treat ramblers and scramblers. I learned the mysteries of twining and twisting and training and stumping, how to plant and when, how to loosen recalcitrant roses out of pots, how to deal with rose sickness, how to get the best out of roses but above all how to enjoy my roses more than I already do. And I would never have thought that was possible.

But what, a sceptic might ask, is the point? Did I not read in a 1937 rose annual that it made no difference whether you pruned roses hard or lightly? Was there not an experiment a few seasons back when someone pruned their roses with an electric hedge trimmer and the roses sprouted all the same? Even Ian Limmer and Simon White, the two Peter Beales experts running the course in an exuberant, fast-paced double act, had two quite different approaches to pruning – one hard, the other light.

And here is one of the first lines I jotted down in my notebook and underlined twice in case I didn't believe it the first time: after the first year's hard prune, it doesn't really matter whether you prune lightly or heavily.

That's the sort of sentence that starts a fight among rosarians. But it is fundamentally true.

That doesn't mean, of course, that pruning doesn't matter, or can be done with little thought. The hedge cutter won't take care of the vital three 'd's: cutting out diseased, damaged and dead wood. It doesn't take care of the shape of the bush – the need for it to be pruned from the centre out, with inward-growing shoots removed and the plant opened out into a goblet shape. And it doesn't take care of the clearing, weeding and feeding and watering that must attend every rose.

Rosarians learn much from their errors. And on this course I learned mightily from mine. For example, I had always thought, when planting a rose, to leave the crown one or two inches above the soil. The preferred method now is to plant with the crown one or two inches below ground, thus minimising wind rock, which is a common cause of poor rose growth.

Don't remove, as I have so often done, a newly bought rose from its pot and let the compost cascade away from the root ball. Better to plant the rose in the pot, wait till the earth has "set" round the roots and then gently raise the rose from the pot with the earth firmly established round the root ball.

Avoid pruning those long stems of climbing roses by lopping off the top. Far better to take the stem and train it horizontally by attaching to a wall or pergola. Then "stump" or prune back the vertical shoots. This way the climber will yield more roses on the lower part of the stem rather than shooting heavenward with a display of roses only at the top.

Such tips may seem obvious to seasoned rosarians. But over time they are easy to neglect in the rush to complete the list of spring chores.

Founder Peter Beales, recently awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Garden Media Guild, began his first nursery in 1968. He defines the appeal of roses in one word: "charisma". And the business, through all its ups and downs, has been a labour of love. "Over the years," he recalls, "I never had any business training but accountants, bank managers and business advisors were never shy in offering me advice. Had I listened to them I would have become a factory farmer growing only a small range of popular varieties in large quantities and by now would have made lots of money."

Mercifully for rose lovers, he ignored this advice and has expanded the business to one sporting 1,300 different varieties of roses, with 300 or so of them rare and unique to his nursery.

Now – secateurs, here I come.

The Peter Beales rose catalogue can be seen at www.classicroses.co.uk

Rose planting and pruning days are normally held in February and these well reflect the growing popularity of old fashioned "natural" ramblers and scramblers.

The rose gardens are a popular visitor destination in June. The courses typically cater for between 12 and 20 students.

I combined my visit with a stay at the Mulberry Tree restaurant and Hotel in Attleborough (01953 452124), enjoying pleasing surroundings and first-class cuisine.

Peter Beales (Roses and Retail), London Road, Attleborough, Norwich, NNR17 1AY.

Tel: 0845 4810277,

www.classicroses.co.uk

#149 This article was first published in The Scotsman Magazine on Saturday, March 20, 2010