Early October Morning through Instagram

Autumn mornings have a certain something that makes them dream-like, that makes them look like scenes from a Bronte's novel. The country side here is simply picture perfect, at least to my eyes. This morning there was a light fog, but not the usual darkness coming with the cloudy skies. You could tell it'd be sunny later on in the day.

When I returned home, I made a couple of bouques from the garden, one of them with my best dahlia - chocolate coloured and even with a light chocolate fragrance.

The Pilgrim?

When we moved into this house, I was pleased to see that I 'inherited' 10 rather old rose bushes. They were not in such a great shape, as they had been neglected for at least 3 years and only given some autumn pruning, not exactly the best type of pruning, as it can leave them exposed to the winter frosts. As a consequence, they were mostly dead wood and I really thought some of them were just that. I removed the weeds around them and gave them some additional pruning removing all the dead wood I could remove and, as it was spring, I gave them a bit of rose food. They all rewarded me with their blooms, even those that seemed dead somehow found enough resources to send new shoots with flowers. Maybe the best of them (with close competition from a purple one I will discuss in another post) was this bush, one that cam easily be trained as a climber, at least if it is exposed south-west.

It's a rather tall bush (about 2m) with shiny dark folliage and repeat bloom. It bloomed once in June and again in August and, ever since, it has been bearing a couple of flowers all the time. Even now, there is one bloom and one bud and it's sending very tall shoots, which I will most likely prune, as I cannot afford having it so tall where it is right now - the house entrance. The flower looks a lot like David Austin's Pilgrim, with a pale yellow center and even paler yellow on the outer petals. It also has a strong smell which I love, but my nose is not trained enough to identify various scents. I hope, after the next summer season, to be able to identify it better by comparison to the fragrances of my labelled roses. Here are a few pictures from back in June:

The flowers have many petals and they open into a quartered rosette. They carry their fragrance from the bud stage and into the stage when they are almost spent.

Shades of Mauve

These days I don't get to work in the garden as much as I wish I did, there have been long days of clouds and rain and cold. It did feel like winter...almost. I needed some colour and fragrance so I made this small bouquet of some later blooms

...and it smells like summer

Of English Roses

It's mid-October and summer is long gone. My garden seems to ignore this since most of the flowers are in bloom: the roses are putting out their last buds, dahlias are in full bloom, my delphinium and geraniums as well and the list goes on. Me, on the other hand, I don't enjoy this autumn so much - it's soooo cold and the rain just wouldn't stop pouring, so I don't have pictures of all the abovementioned flowers. I do spend my days indoors with my baby-girl, browsing catalogues in search of new roses and other plants....but mainly roses. I love roses, I love them so much that I spent yesterday morning browsing catalogues from Delbard & Tantau, sniffing one of the last flowers from Brother Cadfael (deliciously fragrant) and driking coffee from a new purchase I made at a flea market during the week-end. It drew my attention because of its pattern - roses! Yeah, I did develop some sort of obsession. When I brought my new coffee set home (saucer & cup & cake plate) I looked it up and found out it was made by a china company from the UK called Paragon while the name of the collection is Victoriana Rose. I am really pleased with my find and I now use it every day. I leave you now with some pictures taken indoors, of course