Rose Garden

Rose Garden Design is made up of four different principles; form, texture, colour and line. But what type of landscape design does one make; Formal, Informal, Cottage or something else? Will you use annuals, perennials, climbing roses, rose bushes and will you use tangible objects to grow your roses up or around?

Often, landscape garden design is driven by a desire to create a place to relax, entertain or somewhere to escape to. But when in comes rose gardens it is all about the roses. Rose gardeners, particularly the purist, are passionate about this area of interest!

A Formal Garden (or traditional) is all about the geometrical shape and is usually a simple square or rectangle. The planting is laid out in straight rows with Hybrid teas, Grandifloras and Floribundas often the backbone of the design. A focal point such as a water fountain or a birdbath, usually in the centre, is surrounded by latticework to support climbing roses with paving stones, cutwork parterres or strips of sod dividing the garden into symmetrical beds.

An Informal Garden favours varying types of roses and their placement. Using curving lines to soften the edges and mixing up old-fashioned and modern roses together.

The Cottage Garden combines roses with other favourite plants in an effort to define the cottage as much as the garden itself. Taller plants and shrubs are placed at the back making the arrangement a more important factor. Meandering paths and curved edges in the garden design are decorated with an array of rose bushes.

Many garden structures are used to grow roses under and around such as a;

• Pillar or Teepee
• Parasol
• Trellis
• Arch or Arbor
• Pergola or Swag

A Pillar is a central post around which the rose canes are loosely coiled. The pillar may be made of many different materials with a wrought iron construction amongst the most popular. The Teepee is an adaptation of the pillar which combines three or four pillars joined at the top to form a pyramid shape.

The Parasol, another adaptation of the pillar, is in essence a wrought iron pillar with an umbrella frame attached to the top.

Trellises or screens, walls, and fences, come in numerous shapes including square, fan, espaliers with vertical, horizontal and diagonal designs.

The Arch, and its cousin the Arbor, are vertical and horizontal forms of the trellis. The arch tends to be a portal - a structure to which one passes through to another part of the garden. The arbor is a similar structure under which one remains and is often an entertaining area with seating.

Pergolas can be described as a series of connected arches which cover a path. Another adaptation is the Swag which is essentially a series of vertical pillars connected at the top by a horizontal chain or rope.

At www.garden-design-pictures.com we hope you find the inspiration for your Rose Garden Design. As contributors continue to submit their rose garden projects this site will no doubt contain an awesome array of pictures showing miniature roses, ground cover roses, climbers, ramblers, and shrub roses. With over 2,000 different varieties of roses in the world in various shades of yellow, red, pink, peach and white, eventually, we will have the most comprehensive data bank of rose garden design.

Whether you have a container-grown garden, only grow heirloom roses, are a landscape gardener or are the head gardener of a large country estate - we would like to see your submission.

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