Was there on Friday. Rosa muliganii in the White Garden wasn't quite
out, but it was coming, and elsewhere the roses were amazing - I saw
some I'd never seen before, including Nuits de Young, Duchesse de
Montebello, and Sissinghurst Castle.

BUUUUT - and I know not everyone will agree - why, oh why the modern
plantings? Why fill the place with asters when Vita loathed them?
Shouldn't preserving a garden mean replanting with the same sorts of
plants? I know with roses there are soil sterilisation issues - though
I've never found this a huge problem myself - but surely this can't be
resolved by plonking a David Austin in instead of a gallica.

Okay, joke over, but the rationale Tony Lord gives is that it extends
the display - fine, but is the goal of the N Trust to preserve, or
merely to give the punters what they'd get in the local park? What do
others think? I get depressed when I see historic gardens tarted up,
like seeing the Mona Lisa restored with acrylic paint because that's
what visitors now want.
--
Jane Lumley