A Bouquet of Pink Roses

It was a rainy day, my baby girl was sleeping and I had to keep company to my boy indoors.

Since he likes so much to play with his cars, I chose my own toys - these beauties from the garden:

...and I turned them into this:

Then I added one of recently purchased chairs that came with a pretty tea-box as a gift and took some more pictures.

And finally, I used the shabby view of our barn as a background.

The stars of the show: rosa The Ingenious Mr Fairchild, rosa Cottage Maid, rosa Blossomtime and a few lavender sprays.

I hope you'll enjoy this as much as I did... well, minus the fragrance :)

My Garden under the Mountains

There is a deserted hundred-years-old house in Brasov, Romania. That's where I planted my first roses, about three and a half years ago.

There were 4 of them that I can remember and a fifth crimson one whose name I forgot. I ordered them on David Austin's website, but not all were his creation.

As we live 1500km away from this house and garden, they are completely neglected. Never pruned at a right time - only when I get there, which is almost never right.

Winters in Brasov are hard, with a lot of snow and big frosts. Most winters bring temps of around -25 or even -30.

Ironically, my rose Golden Celebration was not killed by those winter lows, but by the people who mow the grass and cut it repeatedly to the ground.

This June was the first time that I saw the surviving roses in bloom.

It is Margaret Merill, a white floribunda.

and this is the neglected bush in its 3rd year:

It was probably cut to the ground several times, as it was a meter away from Golden Celebration.

The rose that thrives the most is an old rose that is climbing an arch and is very charming in its small perfect rosette shape. It has 2 tones of pink, in a variegated blend and a nice medium fragrance.

It's name is Cottage Maid and there are two things I don't like a lot about it: it has countless thorns, big and small and it loses its petals quite fast.

Oh, and it is a once bloomer.

and here you have the bush in its 3rd year

My favourite rose in this garden is called The Ingenious Mr Fairchild and it's an Austin creation with peony like blooms with the most amazing fragrance.

What I don't like about it is the rather slim branches which make the blooms rather droopy. I do forgive it for this, because even neglected it build a decent bush and it seems to be completely desease free.

and here is the bush in its 3rd year

There's also this red rose which looks somehow as a hybrid tea (but maybe not :), also ordered from David Austin, but whose name I must look up. It smells just like my grandma's old roses and I love it for this simple reason.
(Later edit: it's the George Dickinson rose, indeed a hybrid tea.)

and the twiggy small bush in front of Cottage Maid

There's also this 2 year old rose called Blossom Time with pretty blooms and a nice fragrance, but with really poor growth in these rough conditions.

June is here! .... and spring

Yeah, spring seems to have finally arrived at the same time as June...oh, wait, this is supposed to be summer. They are all messed up anyway.
After a few days of sunshine and temps at around 22-24 degrees, my roses are full of buds, but not yet opened.
Last evening I took a quick tour of the garden to see how things are and I took some photos of the blooms.
Since we are leaving to Romania tomorrow, I want to have a view of the current blooms, as it will be warm and nice and sunny, so the garden will look completely different after my week away.

This is a combination I really like, especially since it is quite random - I had a bag of anemone bulbs, but they were mixed colours, so I had no idea what was to come up.

Two other colours of anemones came up, but this lilac one is my favourite.
Here are the other two :

I really really like columbines and I have three different kinds in my garden. They are rather new, so I hope they will produce variations from their seeds.
Here is Nora Barlow black - a rather hard to photograph colour if you do it with a phone - I should really give it a try with my camera.

 Nora Barlon pink in two different perspectives of the same bush

 And a white columbine - the newest I have

Speaking of white, I've always had the dream of a white garden. I have a very small plot to garden on right now, so this is still a dream of luxury :-)

In the mean while, I enjoy the white or almost white flowers in my garden.

This white grape-hiacynth that keeps on giving and giving new blooms (there are some buds that are just coming out of the ground right now).

 This white dicentra - I do prefer it to its classical "bleeding heart" sister

 And this great iris that is actually not completely white, but an almost washed out mauve.
A huge plus about it - also smells great.

Yes, my irises only start blooming now - what did I tell you about spring and June?