Daring to grasp the thorn

Could this be the best way to train roses ever, asks Val Bourne

- Val Bourne 

WHEN I’m driving, like many a gardener, I keep one eye on the road and one on the verge. That was how I discovered Asthall Manor, just west of Burford in Oxfordshire. A substantial stone arch, festooned with roses, had to be examined on foot because I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. Gertrude Jekyll’s favorite blush white rose, The Garland, was a mass of flower, but without its usual lanky stems and wayward habit.

Synchronicity is a wonderful thing—there was an NGS opening on the following Sunday. The fickle British weather turned and it rained all day, so only a handful of stalwarts turned up, which gave me the opportunity to talk to the then head gardener, Mark Edwards. Asthall’s owner, Rosanna Pearson, had commissioned Julian and Isabel Bannerman to add some magic to the austere country house once owned by the Mitford family and Mr Edwards was the man charged with turning the Bannermans’ romantic 1998 design into reality.