You can grow Roses in Cornwall!
Trewithen's rose garden was opened in March 2008 and is the first of its kind in Cornwall. Now in Bloom.Jointly developed with Stuart Pocock, owner of the Cornish Rose Company, the beds have been laid out in the shape of a traditional Celtic cross with a water feature at the centre created from granite reclaimed from Pentewan Harbour, Mevagissey - a structure built by Sir Christopher Hawkins, an ancestor of Trewithen's current owner, Michael Galsworthy.
Planted out with more than 3000 different specimens - ranging from Sweet Haze, rose of the year in 2008, to Rosa mundi, first bred in the 18th Century - the garden is a mass of colour and fragrance throughout the summer months.
The Cornish Rose Company is a branch of Pococks Roses from Hampshire, both run by Stewart and Rebecca Pocock. For 23 years they have been growing and supplying home grown Hampshire roses all over the UK. Curiously they noted that orders (and repeat orders) to the county of Cornwall were higher than to any other county. As a result we started to grow roses in Cornwall whereupon the Cornish Rose Company emerged in the village of Mitchell near Truro and began to impress upon the Cornish residents that roses could be grown in this mild, damp and windy climate.
Growing roses in the climate of the south west and especially Cornwall has always been associated with many myths. The air is too clean, black spot is rife, the winters are too mild, sea and salt winds are no good for roses. There is some truth in all of these but it is not exclusively a Cornish problem!
1. With correct choice of varieties the fungal problems can be hugely reduced.
2. With protection from the fiercest winds even gardens right on the coast can grow roses well.
3. Roses generally perform better if they have a rest i.e a dormant period and in Cornwall where the winters are generally milder than elsewhere in the country this can be induced by pruning straight after Christmas.
In this new rose garden at Trewithen we aim to show that it is possible, easy and rewarding to grow roses in Cornwall.
To read our full press story about the planting of the Rose Garden please click here.
