Growing scented roses for summer

The eglantine roses I planted in the blossom wood are doing exactly what I wanted them to, and I am feeling rather good about it. They have had two summers to get their feet in and rise above the meadow grass, and with a little bulk their aromatic foliage is beginning to catch the breeze. I planted them on the windward side of the path quite deliberately so that their perfume would form an invisible tunnel of deliciousness. After dew or a shower of rain, you can walk into their influence, a delicate cloud that smells of green apples and early summer.

Rosa eglanteria – or the sweet briar, as it's otherwise known – was a component of Titania's bower in A Midsummer Night's Dream. You might at first confuse it with native dog rose, or Rosa canina. Though it will be easily as rangy when it's established, the added attraction of the essential oils in the foliage make it the superior plant in my book.

As soon as the foliage breaks in the spring it is performing, and though the perfume dims in the late summer as the foliage ages, by then its hips are providing for you.

The arching sprays of dog roses are at their most wonderful just now with bud in reserve and a smattering of flowers tumbling over the branches. Dog roses have a delightful simplicity which far outweighs their fleeting fortnight of flower, and their easy demeanour more than compensates for the fact that they are once-blooming. You simply have to think of them as you might a blossom tree and delight in their ability to root you in the moment.

They start early with the "Canary Bird", which pops bright at the start of May. I admit to never having grown it, favouring the slightly later Rosa x cantabrigiensis, which grows bigger in all directions, eventually to about 10ft. I use it on the margins of larger gardens to feather the way from ornamental garden to something wilder. The primrose yellow flowers cover the bush at cow parsley time, and they make excellent companions. The foliage is fine and ferny, and in autumn the branches are scattered with tiny dark-red hips. If I have the room, I'll team it with "Frühlingsgold" for the change in scale in the flowers. Soft in tone, its flowers age fast from gold to primrose. There is a humble quality about the shrub, and although you would never call it a dog rose, the ephemeral nature of the flowers retains a freshness.

At a more accommodating scale are the Scotch briar roses. You find Rosa spinosissima growing in coastal sand dunes, arching to 3ft or so and running into thickety colonies. On the Gower Peninsula in South Wales, it grows with bloody cranesbill and sea holly, the single creamy flowers studding branches massed with little thorns. The foliage is dark and ferny and, come the autumn, almost-black hips weight the branches. Grow it among silvery groundcovers and low lavenders to show these to best effect.

Resistant to sea breezes, never really troubled by pests or diseases, Scotch briars are toughies. "Dunwich Rose" is a handsome selection from Suffolk and perhaps the most floriferous, with lemon-yellow flowers. It will adapt to a range of soils. I also love "Single Cherry", with its pale reverse and fruity red flowers. Though not strictly a dog rose, "Stanwell Perpetual" is one of the few Scotch briars to repeat-flower. It is palest shell pink and semi-double, and I love its arching growth and resilience. "Double White" will grow a little bigger than most Scotch briars, forming a thicket of up to 5ft and making a fine wind break if you need it. Each little flower, not much more than an inch across, is perfectly formed, like a doll's house rose, and perfect in a sprig for a summer lapel. I plan to use it on the banks around my vegetable garden to give me some shelter from the westerlies. Planted deep, so that the root graft is covered, it will quickly sucker and run to form a thicket of delightfulness.