I took this colourful picture a few years ago during an event at the Antique Rose Emporium in Texas. The creamy-white flower is a form of hibiscus. Continue reading “Retro Floral With Peonies and Roses”
Retro Floral With Peonies and Roses
Gallery of White Roses
“There is something quite special about white roses… they are all purity and light.” – David Austin
I’m sharing pictures of white shrub roses and rambling roses in eager anticipation of the peak flowering season for roses which is a couple of weeks or so away in my part of the world. As my sweetheart would say, bring it on! Meanwhile, I’ll let the roses do their own talking.
Purple Flowers and Foliage
If you’re looking for a purple rambling rose, there aren’t many to choose from. Rosa ‘Veilchenblau’ has its passionate fans and detractors, as do many roses. It only flowers once and is not resistant to blackspot: this plant has a freckling of it on the leaves. The spent flowers don’t drop cleanly, so the plant becomes scruffier towards the end of flowering. But what a rare beauty it is at its zenith, throwing out arching canes of flowers that become more purple with age. Continue reading “Purple Flowers and Foliage”
Old-fashioned Pink Roses With Lots of Petals
There’s something about roses with many petals. For many, these romantic, soulful plants are the archetypal roses, especially if they happen to be pink and to have a good fragrance.
Some of these do and some don’t. What interests me about them is their flower forms, the patterns the petals take, and the way the blooms cluster together. The odd one you may recognise. Continue reading “Old-fashioned Pink Roses With Lots of Petals”
Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham, Texas, and Memories of Roses
A free-to-visit garden is not to be sniffed at – but then again, some of them are. Few visitors to a rose garden can resist leaning in to inhale the fragrance. We seem hard-wired to think ‘scent’ the moment after we think ‘rose’.
Shakespeare’s ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ can’t take all the credit. Scent associations trap memories like flies in amber in a lifetime’s layering of impressions. Continue reading “Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham, Texas, and Memories of Roses”
Wordless Wednesday: Peach Roses
Hip-Bearing Roses: Rugosas
Any rose producing round, tomato-like hips with long, wriggly appendages is a rugosa. The edible, orange-red hips turn sweeter after a frost and provide a good source of antioxidants and vitamin C. While the comparison with tomatoes or crab apples is more common, they remind me of Christmas tree baubles. Continue reading “Hip-Bearing Roses: Rugosas”
Susan Rushton 