"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight"
This is Shakespeare's vision of a 'wild garden' in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". However, the art of gardening spent the next two and a half centuries perfecting not wildness but artifice in the garden, which reached its apogee with the mass bedding systems of the the mid-Victorians. At least, that is, until 1870 when a bombshell hit. The 32 year old William Robinson published "The Wild Garden" in which he argued strongly for more naturalistic gardening and against mass bedding.
The book found friends in two great Rosarians, Dean Hole and Gertrude Jekyll. Gertrude Jekyll herself created a wonderful wild garden in a garden she designed for Charles Holm at Upton Grey Manor House. In this garden, recently restored, mown grass paths wander through longer grass meadow set about, inter alia, by mounds of rambling roses.
The new vision came at a critical time for roses. First, many of the old single cottage garden roses, such as the alba roses and the scotch briars were in danger of being lost from sight in the welter of sumptuous Victorian hybrids, including the new tea roses. Gertrude Jekyll was a champion of the old cottage roses and the informality of the the wild garden was a good setting for them - in a way that the formal rose garden was not.
Secondly, breeders were raising new hybrids using the newly discovered rambling roses from the far east, like Rosa multiflora and Rosa wichuraiana, These wonderful new ramblers were vigorous and unruly and although they could find a place in the formal rose garden on pergolas and pillars their exuberance was difficult to keep in check. On the other hand when left to clamber naturalistically over potting sheds, old stumps and into apple trees, they were superb.
At Upton Grey Miss Jekyll uses the following: the old cottage favourite "Maiden's Blush" (an old alba), the Ayrshire rose "Dundee Rambler" (of 1850), and one of its parents, Rosa arvensis; other species roses, R. virginiana and R. glauca (rubrifolia); the wichuraiana hybrid Jersey Beauty (of 1899); the moschata hybrids "The Garland" (of 1835) and "Mme d'Arblay" (of 1835); multifloras were represented by "Dorothy Perkins" (of 1901), "Euphrosyne" (of 1895), and "Blush Rambler" (of 1903). All these roses are pale and understated in colour, with small flowers that are often (but not always) single.
WHAT ARE THE REQUIRED CHARACTERISTICS FOR A ROSE IN THE WILD GARDEN?
(1) Vigour and hardiness. They need to hold their own against vigorous neighbours, as shrubs in long grass or against tall herbs or other shrubs. Timid roses will not survive. As they will not receive the manuring and mulching that a formal bed rose would expect, they must be thrifty and capable of surveying on poor soil without attention. They must also not require pruning, but instead be allowed to grow into their naturally elegant forms.
Most of their qualities can be found in the wild roses, which have the advantage of being single and therefore looking the part. The qualities are also found in hybrids that are one step away from the wild roses, such as the creamy Alberic Barbier (R. wichuraiana X "Shirley Hibbard"). However, if these are too double, or their blooms too large, they start to look out of place in the wild garden.
(2) Size. Small roses can be inspected up close in a formal bed. Roses in the wild garden must signal their charms across a meadow or from the depths of a thicket. A small rose will not do, unless it is used by paths as a transition between the formal and less formal parts of the garden: some of the old scotch briars would be perfect for this.
Rambling roses, particularly the larger ones, will happily reach a good size to hold their own, whether grown without support to form large mounds, or whether they are allowed to scramble into a tree. The larger shrub roses (over 2 m) can also be used, particularly if they don't straggle but form large thick bushes with elegant arching stems. They all need to be highly floriferous to attract attention. They do not necessarily need to repeat bloom (continuous flower is not the hallmark of the wild garden) but they must be spectacular when they do bloom, otherwise they will be lost in the landscape.
(3) Colour. They should have muted natural colours. Most wild roses have white or pale pink colours. The garish palette of modern roses would look out of place in the wild garden - however lovely they might be in the formal garden. Miss Jekyll favoured white for the wild garden (allowing, at a pinch, blush pink or pale buff), and this is the safe option.
Today our colour aesthetic has been dulled by a continuous barrage of digital colour of hues undreamt of by the Victorians. Consequently the Jekyll palette might seem too exquisite, too restrained, and we may wish to experiment with brighter colours. The red of R. moyesii is natural, and reds are a fairly safe bet as they are the colour opposite of green (by its nature the dominant colour of the wild garden). The bright scarlet of the large shrub Scharlachglut is hypernatural but might even so be a striking focal point in the wild garden.
Yellow, on the other hand, is a difficult (perhaps impossible) colour for the wild garden as it is too close to green and will tend to look sickly against a green background. However, in case someone wants to experiment in interesting ways I have suggested the large shrub "Maigold". Most riskily of all, I have suggested (purely for experimental purposes) the cerise pink shrub "Cerise Bouquet". It has the vigour and height to form a sturdy, tall mound as a focal point, but could its colour be used successfully in the wild garden? Probably not.
My suggestions are below.
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SUGGESTED ROSE LIST FOR THE WILD GARDEN
ALBA ROSES (R. canina x R. gallica)
R. x alba 'Maxima'
R. x alba 'Semiplena'
R. x alba 'Great Maiden's Blush' (blush pink double)
R. x alba 'Celeste'
AYRSHIRE ROSES (R. arvensis x R. sempervirens)
'Bennett's seedling'
'Dundee rambler'
'Splendens'
MUSK RAMBLERS (R. moschata and R. multiflora x R. moschata)
R. moschata (species)
'The Garland'
'Mme d'Arblay'
'Paul's Himalayan Musk'
'Francis E. Lester'
MULTIFLORA RAMBLERS (Rosa multiflora cvs/hybrids)
'Euphrosyne'
'Blush Rambler'
'Rambling Rector'
'Seven Sisters' Rose' (Rosa multiflora platyphylla)
CANINA ROSES
R. canina 'Kiese'
R. canina 'Abbotswood'
'Complicata' (R. gallica x R. canina)
EGLANTERIA ROSES AND HYBRIDS
Greenmantle
Lord Penzance
Anne of Geierstein
SPINOSSISIMA HYBRIDS
Fruhlingsanfang
Fruhlingsmorgen
SPECIES ROSES (and their double/semi-double cultivars)
R. arvensis
R. virginiana
R. virginiana 'Rose d'Amour' (R. virginiana 'Plena')
R. glauca (rubrifolia)
R. soulieana
R. moyesii (and cvs, such as 'Eddie's Jewel')
R. macrantha
R. sweginzowii macrocarpa
LARGE SPECIES CLIMBERS
R. filipes 'Kiftsgate'
R. mulliganii
R. brunonii
WICHURAIANA RAMBLERS
Dorothy Perkins
Jersey Beauty (R. wichuraiana x 'Perle des Jardins')
Alberic Barbier (R. wichuraiana x 'Shirley Hibbard')
MORE MODERN VARIETIES
William Baffin
Cerise Bouquet
New Dawn
Maigold
Scharlachglut
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