More Roses

Had to share some more rose pictures. I cannot be sure if the perfect huge blooms I am getting this year is due to the good rainfall we have had this year or perhaps it is due to the maturity of the roses but whatever the reason my roses are amazing this year. Each morning I look forward to going out into the garden to check on the roses and every day have found more blooms. They have been so neglected for the last eight years while I have been working away so much so every time I cut some stems I am trying to give the bush a bit of careful pruning in an attempt to put them back in shape.

I picked these yesterday, stunning display of apricot and cream blooms. One rose stood out as being so perfect I had to put it in a vase by itself. The vase is actually a balsamic vinegar bottle with such a good shape to it I soaked the labels off and repurposed the bottle as a bud vase. Edna and Vera would have approved though I doubt if they would ever have had balsamic vinegar in the lifetime! I remember Edna would have malt vinegar and white vinegar in her cupboard. She always had basic white vinegar for cleaning as well as for making mayonnaise and I am sure she would reuse the bottles for practical purposes but not for flowers!

This is such a perfect rose bloom I had to take a photo of it. The vase is a black glass bottle which has made a very good bud vase. More rose stories to come, time to get out in the garden again.

My Blue (well bluish) Rose

My poor garden had been very neglected over the last years of me working in a mad industry that kept me working long hours every day of the week. The few times I actually saw my garden in daylight would make me cry it distressed me so much. Slowly the garden is taking shape again. We are both taking some time every week to do clean up jobs and the rewards are starting to show. It is the best year in many for roses and I have some spectacular blooms around in the garden.

The big surprise last week was a blue rose not far from my front door. I had forgotten that I had planted this one and do not remember seeing it in flower. I had to pick one and take a photo of it. I guess you could say it is not really blue but it is not really purple either so it is the closest to blue I have ever seen.

I remember Edna having a few roses in the farmhouse garden, not many they were too fussy for her and took too much time to manage but there were some in her parent's garden and she looked after them once she moved from the farm to look after her mother. I do remember her saving any decent rose bloom for the church flowers. Roses went to the altar flowers and she treated them as special, not to be used in any old arrangement. I guess they are really special especially when you have one like this.

quite impressive don't you think?

I have taken some more photos of the roses around the garden. Some of them are so huge they are the size of dinner plates, which was an expression Edna used to describe a huge flower. While she was not huge on decorative plants she always admired gardens and loved to take a picnic with me in the Botanic Gardens and visit the rose garden in the parklands in Adelaide. I know that if she was around today this is a rose that I would have sent her a photo of and the next time I called to see her this is a photo that would have been on the lounge mantelpiece or on her writing desk near her diary. She was never on to boast just show genuine admiration when it was deserved.