June is the time to not only enjoy your own garden but to visit others too. It’s the time of year when most gardens are at their zenith, where the foliage is still verdant but floriferous too. On the right day at the right time, they can be magical. The date in June that this occurs varies from year to year but is usually in the first half of June.
Roses, and all the wonderful herbaceous perennials accompanying them, are at the forefront of our imaginations when we picture the perfect June garden. We have planted lots of roses in recent years. Some of my favourites are the deep crimson ‘Munstead Wood’, the yellow rambler ‘Malvern Hills’, the fragrant magenta old rose ‘Reine de Violette’ and a very modern rose ‘For Your Eyes Only’, which has pink, peach and apricot colours with a red eye.
We have many more roses, but this is an excellent example of the diverse range of roses we planted in our gardens. You can team roses with so many perennials, but some good strong options are Nepeta, Geraniums like ‘Rozanne’ (which is one of the greatest garden plants of all time), grasses like Stipa, lavender and Lamb’s Ear (Stachys byzantine). They look good with some shrubs such as Philadelphus, more architectural plants like Beschorneria yuccoides, and smaller Phormiums.
You can keep disease down by regularly picking up fallen rose leaves and lightly cultivating the soil around them. A good mulch and feed in April will do wonders, as will a couple of liquid feeds during the flowering period. Pests tend to diminish during the spring as predators become more populous. We have not treated our roses with pesticides for many years.
In June, we will be hoeing, weeding, watering, deadheading, pruning the rambling roses after flowering, and hedge-cutting the Euonymus if needed. Box would have traditionally been cut in June.
We look forward to welcoming you to the gardens in June.