One climbing rose was outperforming the others during our recent stroll down the long pergola at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Continue reading “Rosa ‘Maid of Kent’ Climbing On A Pergola At Kew”
One Photo Two Ways
This week’s Lens-Artist’s challenge – to share scenes captured in more than one way – is very welcome. I routinely take several shots of anything that piques my interest and just as regularly am not sure which I prefer. It’s nice not to have to choose.
Take this clematis clad stone wall and doorway at Rousham Gardens. Is the scene more romantic when your eye isn’t being led away down the path (which would probably have been my choice) or do you prefer to wander? Continue reading “One Photo Two Ways”
Red roses round the door
While I was gathering pictures for yesterday’s post on rambling roses, I found this red climbing rose. It’s rather spindly, but no less romantic for that – full of flowers, and naturally arching.
Shared for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Pink Climbing Rose: An Exercise
HeyJude is running a photo challenge during 2020 on her Travel Words blog designed to get us thinking about the techniques of taking pictures. You can find out the details and monthly topics here. January’s topic is Composition and Framing. These crops are inspired by some of Jude’s instructions – I’ve added them in italics, so you know the intention.
Clearly identify your subject. Not as easy as it might seem. The rose is my main interest, but the setting is worthy of attention too (around an oval opening on the curved outside fence of Diarmuid Gavin’s garden at RHS Harlow Carr), so I was slightly torn, wanting to give a glimpse of the inside.
It was an overcast summer evening. The curve of the wall and habit of the rose meant shooting into the light, creating a bright glare. The original picture has a few more inches of haze at the top, and bright light always draws the eye away from the subject. I’ve removed some of it with the effect that the crop is neither landscape, portrait or square. I like to keep the traditional proportions if I can, but throwing aside the rules and cropping any way the subject demands is often the difference between a poor picture and a decent one.
Move in closer to your subject, but not too close. While the flowers in the first picture were blobs, more of their character comes out here. Continue reading “Pink Climbing Rose: An Exercise”
Rosa ‘Bathsheba’, An English Climbing Rose
My sweetheart uses the term ‘mannerly climber’ to describe a rose that will climb rather than swamp any structure provided for it by human carers: if the rose produces a succession of elegant, petal-packed rosettes, that’s so much more courteous of it. Rosa ‘Bathsheba’ is a fine example of a mannerly climbing rose.
Pictures rarely tell the full tale of any plant, particularly not a rose. We miss out on the fragrance (strong, flowery myrrh, since you ask) and find it hard to judge the size of the flowers. These are large ones, with a hint of a button eye that becomes Bathsheba very well.
Continue reading “Rosa ‘Bathsheba’, An English Climbing Rose”
The Very Fragrant Rose ‘Gertrude Jekyll’
On Sundays, I’m sharing a square cropped picture of a pink rose as part of Becky’s Square In September challenge. We are invited to dip in and out of this daily challenge as we please. She’s looking for a post where the main photograph is square and the subject is In The Pink.
Several people have asked if the roses I’ve been sharing this month are especially fragrant. Last week’s was not, so I promised a highly scented one for this week and I have kept my word. Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ has as strong and lovely an Old Rose fragrance as anyone could hope for. Scratch and sniff!
(It might work, if you have an active imagination).
‘The Generous Gardener’ Rose (Plus A Riff On Leaves)
‘The Generous Gardener’ rose is one of my favourites. It requires some discipline not to list its selling points, even after so many years, but I’ll confine myself to observing that it is one of the more fragrant English roses, best grown as a short climber against a wall or sturdy pillar. That hardly counts, does it? Continue reading “‘The Generous Gardener’ Rose (Plus A Riff On Leaves)”
Susan Rushton 