| The Rose Garden
"The Rose Garden was designed by my father just before the Second World War and replaced an old grass tennis court. At that time he wrote: 'Background is so important for roses. At Newby we tried the experiment of a sunk garden with flagstones and a surrounding hedge of copper beech' - an unusual foil for the rose! The roses he planted were the old-fashioned shrub roses: albas, centifolias, damasks, gallicas and mosses, which flowered in profusion unfailingly for more than fourty years.
After he died, a top priority for us was to renovate this beautiful rose garden with many of the same species and varieties, as they had grown old and tired from their efforts. The north-west bed is now filled with albas and damasks; the north-east bed with moss roses and a few gallicas; the south-east bed contains hybrid bourbons and centifolias, and the south-west bed gallicas and noisettes.
The roses are interplanted mainly with white and blue plants like herbaceous clematis and the centre path is lined with Geranium renardii, with kidney-shaped leaves.
The urn fountain in the middle of the garden, splashing down into a circular pool echos another centrepiece in the Autumn Garden across the border."
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