Planting a fragrant, colourful rose next to a doorway makes for an enticing entrance. Plant pots either side of the doorstep for a formal look or why not train a climber up the wall for real impact.
The façade of a house should not be forgotten as it provides a unique opportunity to change the style of your home, simply by adding flowers. A wispy rambler will convert a simple house front into the country style property of your dreams, no matter your location.
Claire Austin® (Ausprior)
A vigorous, upright rose of both beauty and strength, it makes an excellent climber. Pale lemon buds open slowly into large, creamy white blooms, their outer petals arranged in perfect concentric circles. The fragrance is richly myrrh, lifted with notes of meadowsweet, vanilla, and heliotrope. With its robust growth, it is ideal for arches, doorways, walls, and fences.
Few Thorns
Roses with few thorns are ideal for doorways and entrances, letting you enjoy their beauty and scent without the risk of pricked fingers or caught fabric.
Roses are wonderful plants for growing in pots. Choose a contrasting colour to your door to make a beautiful, colourful feature.
An pretty rose in soft, glowing apricot-pink, each bloom filled with layers of delicately ruffled petals. Held on red-tinged stems, the flowers begin as shallow cups before opening into full rosettes, their inner petals showing a richer tone that gently fades with time. The fragrance is deliciously strong and fruity. Exceptionally healthy and vigorous, it forms a bushy, upright shrub, making it ideal for filling pots.
Gardener's Tip
For shrub roses choose a container at least 45cm deep and wide to give your rose ample room to grow.
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How to Care for Roses in Pots: Keep Them Happy, Healthy and FloweringGrowing a rose in a pot brings beauty right to the doorstep. Whether nestled against a garden bench, standing proudly on a sun-drenched terrace or softening the edge of a courtyard, container roses offer a graceful solution for smaller spaces. With the right care, they will flourish for many years to come.
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A Guide to Growing Climbing and Rambling Roses in PotsPlanting a climbing or rambling rose in a pot is one of the most effective ways to introduce height, fragrance and structure to smaller gardens, courtyards and terraces. Whether used to frame a doorway, create a flowering screen along a wall or soften the lines of an obelisk, these roses offer a remarkable display when given the right conditions. Though the approach demands a little more upkeep than planting in open ground, the rewards are considerable: abundant blooms, repeat flowering, and a sense of movement and beauty that elevates even the most compact of spaces.
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Lasting Love: A Valentine’s Day of Roses, Planted for Years to ComeValentine’s Day has always been a day of gesture, but it has never truly been about the gesture alone. At its heart, it’s about choosing a way to express what matters, and doing so with care. That might be a few well-chosen words. A note left somewhere it will be found. A gift that feels considered, not hurried. The most enduring expressions of love rarely shout for attention. They simply remain.
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A Year With Roses: Seasonal Goals for Your GardenRoses guide the pace of the garden year. Their summer display is shaped by a series of small, thoughtful tasks that unfold long before the first bloom appears. Each season offers its own moment to step in and help your roses flourish.
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Winter Solstice: Marking the Garden’s Midwinter PauseThe winter solstice arrives quietly, the shortest day slipping in with little ceremony. In the garden, everything feels suspended. Frost holds the edges of fallen leaves, the soil settles into its long exhale and even the familiar shapes of roses seem to rest. This stillness is not an ending but a pause, a moment when the year hesitates before turning back toward the light.
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Roses at Christmas: A Winter Bloom Through HistoryRoses and Christmas may seem unlikely companions, yet the flower has held a place in midwinter traditions for centuries. At a time of year when daylight is brief and the garden lies still, the rose has often stood for continuity, memory and the promise of renewal. Its presence, whether symbolic, preserved or coaxed into late bloom, has long brought a touch of grace to the festive season.
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How to Make a Foraged Rose Hip Christmas WreathA winter walk often reveals more than you expect, especially when you start gathering what the season gives you. For generations, people have stepped out into the darker months to collect what the hedgerows have to offer: evergreens, seedheads, berries and, of course, rose hips. A wreath made from these finds feels honest and seasonal, shaped by the garden and the landscape rather than by anything store-bought. It is a small way of bringing winter’s character indoors.
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Roses of Christmas Past: Memories from the Victorian GardenIn the stillness of December, when frost feathers the garden and bare branches trace strong silhouettes against pale skies, it is easy to think of another age. A Dickensian Christmas feels close at hand: lantern light on cobbled streets, mist in the air, and behind brick walls and wrought-iron gates, old roses resting through the cold. Though they are bare now, many of the varieties we grow today were already cherished in Victorian times, rooted in gardens that knew the same cold, the same darkness, and the same deep anticipation of return.
