From its iconic Dry Garden to exciting new features, our Essex garden goes from strength to strength. From its iconic Dry Garden to exciting new features, our Essex garden goes from strength to strength.

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Shrub Rose Border and Gold Border

With a more relaxed and informal structure than the Rose Garden, the winding Shrub Rose Border connects the Lower Pond and Woodland Garden

Looking its best in...

Summer Flowers and fragrance fill the Shrub Rose Border
Winter The variegated, evergreen shrubs of the Gold Border glow on dull winter days

Mixing old with new

The planting in the Shrub Rose Border comprises both old-fashioned and modern, shrub and species roses in many colours and flower forms. During the summer months, the walk is filled with a glorious heady fragrance that provides a feast for the senses. Small paths breaking off from the main path allow visitors to get close to every variety of rose in the border.

Cultivars that are particularly outstanding and always provoke a reaction include Rosa ‘Roseraie de l’Hay’, with its strong scent and carmine red flowers, and Rosa gallica ‘Versicolor’, with its bicoloured blooms. Some of the other roses situated here are old varieties that are not commonly grown today.

Year-round interest

Although at its best during the summer, the border has plenty to offer at other times of the year. In late winter, the area is carpeted in vivid blue with the flowering of thousands of Scilla forbesii (glory of the snow).

When spring arrives, trees such as the delicate Prunus ‘Pandora’ and flowering crab apple Malus ‘Jay Darling’ put on a display of beautiful blossom. Late spring sees the first roses come into bloom, which usually begins with the incredible lemon-yellow flowers of R. xanthina ‘Canary Bird’.

Gold Border

Following a visit to the Gold Garden at Crathes Castle in the 1970s, the Robinsons were inspired to create a collection of gold-leaved or gold-flowered plants, which included Aucuba japonica ‘Variegata’, Malus ‘Golden Hornet’, Morus nigra (mulberry) and Alchemilla mollis.

The area was enhanced in 2005 with the introduction of new plants. The most interesting additions include Osmanthus, Cornus mas ‘Aurea’ and Cotinus coggygria Golden Spirit (‘Ancot’).

Plants in the Shrub Rose Border and Gold Border

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Read our advice on pruning shrub roses »

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The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.