"Growing tips
'Stanwell Perpetual' adapts to any soil, even thriving on chalk. It tolerates some shade and is so hardy that it grows well in Scandinavia. It can be grown as a specimen, a hedge, in a container or up a pillar.
Thorny 'Stanwell Perpetual' is best grown away from paths and steps. Dig a large enough hole to allow you to spread the roots out, shortening any really long ones, and mix in a handful of bone meal. Place the rose in the hole and cover with soil making sure the union - the bumpy part at the bottom of the stem - is an inch below the surface. Press down firmly, water if necessary, then cut the rose down hard, reducing each stem to 3in to 5in long at an outward-facing bud. This will prevent wind rock and make the plant stronger and less leggy.
If you grow it as single specimen try to preserve the arching shape. Remove any dying, diseased and damaged wood and shorten the thorny stems by up to a third during winter. You can cut it back hard in spring if you want a shorter rose, as it flowers on the new wood.
When planting a hedge, leave a 3ft gap between each rose and trim to the desired size in winter.
Feed sparingly; sprinkling an organic fertiliser round the roots at the beginning of the growing season will be plenty.
If you do get an attack of black spot gather the fallen leaves and destroy them - don't add them to the compost heap. This robust rose should shrug off the disease the following year. If it does return, gather the leaves again and water the plant and surrounding ground thoroughly with a strong tar-wash solution in winter.
Good companions
Its shell-pink flowers mix well with other old-fashioned varieties or shrub roses. These can be interspersed with violas or campanulas and edged with the silvery leaves of Stachys byzantina. 'Stanwell Perpetual' also suits a woodland planting."
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