Munstead Wood

An English Rose named for the house and garden in Surrey that originally belonged to Getrude Jekyll.

While Jekyll designed the garden, the house was designed by Edwin Lutyens. It was here that she devised the principles of garden design that she eventually published in her best-known books Wood and Garden (1899) and Colour in the Flower Garden (1908).

And this now, is one of those moments where Blip, serendipity and coincidence meet to produce a memory.

We bought this particular rose because it needed to fulfil 3 criteria; (i) suitable for growing in a container, (ii) fragrant and (iii) a red colour. There were only a couple that ticked all three boxes on the David Austin website and this one just happened to be in our local garden centre. The name was vaguely familiar but I couldn’t quite work out why.

Searching for Munstead Wood (the rose) on the internet pointed me in the direction of Munstead Wood (the house). And then the light bulb moment.

After I left school and before I went to university I worked as a telephone engineer. One day I was called to Munstead Wood (the house) to deal with a fault on the line. Such a place was completely outside of my experience. The woodland setting, the garden and the house were a long way from where I grew up. I knew nothing of garden design or architecture but I could tell, even at that young age, that this was something quite special. Its present status as a Grade 1 listed building confirms that.

As for Munstead Wood (the rose), I think this too, is something quite special. The colour is deep crimson and the scent is of old fashioned roses. This is the first bud to flower and I abandoned DDW’s fork challenge today in order to take advantage of the overcast sky. I’ve noticed, since starting to blip, that sunshine tends to bleach out the colours of flowers. This doesn’t really do it justice. From some angles the petals are so dark they almost look black. Another day, perhaps.