Alan Titchmarsh has named the Bonica rose as a plant with "attractive hips" for gardeners with sandy soil. Writing in Country Life, he described the Bonica — bred by Meilland in France in 1985 and holding the RHS Award of Garden Merit — as a good "doer" on his sandy soil and part of a "tried-and-tested combination" with lavender.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) advises choosing plants that are "happy in dry, infertile soils" for sandy ground, which is straightforward to cultivate but dries out fast, is short of plant nutrients and is often acidic. This type of soil heats up faster than clay in spring, but rain can wash away any nutrients present.
Why Bonica suits poor soil
Alan said many roses enjoy heavier ground but are prone to mildew and blackspot on what he described as "impoverished earth". His own approach is to add well-rotted manure to his acidic sand and to mulch it every year in the same manner.
He explained that Bonica "repeat flowers, but also produces attractive hips if not dead-headed." If it has one drawback, he said, it is a "delicate" scent — "a euphemism for 'hardly there'" — but he forgives it because of the large clusters of flower and healthy foliage it brings.
Other garden advice
Alan also spoke of the benefits of narrow borders, saying they can be easily cultivated because gardeners can attack them from either side, and can be transformed "dramatically" by tweaking their "make-up".
Alan has previously said that "no garden is complete without a rose", adding: "For colour, for fragrance, and just for the sheer joy of watching them open." He has described the Jacques Cartier rose as an "oddity" because it "flowers right the way through the year", adding: "It's quite a tall rose, it will grow to seven or eight feet if you let it."
Having moved from Hampshire to a 16th-century cottage in Surrey, Alan said of his new garden: "What I love about my new garden is the way it complements the house in the way it's been softly sculpted - there are no hard edges, there's lots of fraying into trees, then shrubs, lower perennials, and the pond with the ducks dabbling."
Writing in Gardeners' World magazine last year, he described how his "Shirotae" cherry, normally a highlight in early April, was stripped of its buds by wood pigeons after he returned from a weekend away.
