At the right of the fore-garden lies the Rose Garden. This part of The Garden has its own pergola-lined walkway and an array of specimen roses donated by one of The Garden's sponsors - top rose growers, David Austin Roses.

Everyone involved with The Alnwick Garden has a favourite rose, while our garden volunteers, who help with the dead heading of the roses in peak season, will tell you the best roses to use for rose petal sorbet, the Duchess may favour a rose because of its understated beauty and our head gardener because of the continual splendour of a particular bloom. Whatever your passion for roses we are sure that you will not be disappointed by the fragrance and beauty offered by the Rose Garden.

To coincide with the creation of The Alnwick Garden, a new English rose was launched by David Austin at the 2001 Chelsea Flower Show. The Shropshire-based nursery has produced a beautiful rich pink rose, called the Alnwick Rose, with cup-shaped buds gradually opening into a deeply cupped flower, later developing into a broad, full-petalled, shallow cup of a soft pink which is paler at the outer edges.

The new rose has a delicious Old Rose fragrance with a hint of raspberries, round bushy growth and it blooms continually from early summer to the onset of the frost. It has plenty of green foliage that complements the flowers, which illustrate exactly the form of the Old Rose blooms.

This rose joins other English, Old, Shrub and climbing roses in the Rose Garden. A total of 3,000 rose bushes and climbers create a massive splash of colour.

Further details about the roses within The Garden are available in David Austin's new "Handbook of Roses" which is available to buy at the Garden Shop.

When providing roses to The Alnwick Garden, David Austin Roses gave us a very strict regime of care to follow. Our gardeners regularly spray and feed the roses according to this regime and the blooms are spectacular for it. The feed is one of our head gardener's special secrets but he will hint that seaweed is involved.

Pergola lined pathways lead through the Rose Garden where the visitor will witness a tumbling mass of fragrant blooms each with a name which conjures up romantic images. Look for Jude the Obscure, Gertrude Jekyll and, of course, the Alnwick Rose.