Pottering in the Rose Garden

Pottering in the Rose Garden

It's early June, and from the Rose Garden I'm going to share my daily process of making edits at this fast-paced time of year to keep the garden looking its best.

The Style of Planting

• My favourite style of planting is a mixture of quite exotic ornamental plants interlaced with more natural-looking plants (either planted or self-seeded).
• Slender plants work well in the Rose Garden as they create impact in limited space, and the spires contrast with the rounded shapes of the roses to bring energy.
• Ox-eye daisies and foxgloves bring points of white without being too much.
• We sowed the ox-eye daisies in autumn and planted them out as small plants (7cm pots) so they don't form big masses.

Making Edits

At this time of year we need to intervene and garden every day or 'potter' – which includes:

• tidying and removing brown leaves
• deadheading
• editing
• staking – especially if plants are flopping in wet weather.

Always keep an eye on the balance in the layered planting.

Check if there is anything that isn't in the right place, isn't the right colour, isn't being shown off to its best, or you don't want to set seed.

• To find the best place for a key plant, take a flower or the plant in a pot around the garden and offer it up to potential partners to see how they pair together.
• Aquilegias hybridise when they seed, which can lose the colour, so we cut them down before the seeds ripen.

Check for where slugs and snails are lurking in damp weather, and relocate them to somewhere where they'll do less damage.

• Gardening organically is the way forward; just keep an eye on the creatures that share the garden with you and intervene sensitively if needed.

The Rose Garden is marvellous through the year but now coming into June it has a sequence of floral delights, from the irises to the peonies to the roses.

Further Reading

• RHS Principal Entomologist on how to deal with slugs
• RHS Slugs: Friend or Foe? Know Your Slugs and Learn to Live With Them (2025) from Summerfield Books

Plant Directory

Aquilegia species and cultivars

Columbines

Hardy herbaceous perennials

Ranunculaceae

Digitalis purpurea

Common foxglove

Hardy herbaceous biennials or short-lived perennials

Plantaginaceae

Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora

White-flowered foxglove

Hardy herbaceous biennial or short-lived perennial

Plantaginaceae

Geranium species and cultivars

Hardy geraniums, cranesbills

Hardy herbaceous perennials

Geraniaceae

Iris germanica species and cultivars

Bearded irises

Hardy herbaceous perennials from rhizomes

Iridaceae

Iris 'Shannopin'

Tall bearded iris 'Shannopin'

Hardy herbaceous perennials from rhizomes

Iridaceae

Leucanthemum vulgare

Ox-eye daisy

Hardy herbaceous perennial

Asteraceae

Linaria purpurea

Purple toadflax

Hardy herbaceous perennial

Plantaginaceae

Lupinus species and cultivars

Lupins

Hardy or half-hardy annuals, short-lived perennials or herbaceous perennials

Fabaceae

Paeonia species and cultivars

Peonies

Hardy herbaceous perennials or deciduous subshrubs

Paeoniaceae

Rosa species and cultivars

Roses

Hardy deciduous shrubs or climbers

Rosaceae

Tragopogon porrifolius

Salsify

Hardy herbaceous or semi-evergreen biennial

Asteraceae

Glossary

Deadhead

Removing spent flowerheads after flowering has finished to promote the production of more flowers or prevent seeding.

Hybridise

When two different plant cultivars or forms cross-pollinate, they produce offspring that are different from either of the parents.