Paris in Springtime!

Places des Voges in the Marais: here I am in one of the most beautiful ancient squares in Paris.

Kosher Pizza in the old Jewish quarter – also the Marais.

Roses on the Right Bank. At ‘Au Nom de la Rose’ we found South American roses all lined up to brighten the dark street and bought a beautiful scented candle called Mai Rose, which reminded me to continue our candle-making process at Country Roses, where we have our own fragrance based on our own roses and created by the best parfumiers in Grasse, Robertet.

(photographs by Danae Brook)

Roses on the Right Bank

Au Nom de la Rose

Halloween at Josselyns

Happy Halloween!

It's rare for Halloween to be celebrated with roses but, we have armfuls of roses like the colours of autumn leaves. So, I'm just posting a picture of our jack-o-lantern with Warm Wishes!

Morning at Josselyns

Halloween pumpkins and roses

October's Indian Summer Roses

Picking and gathering the best of the autumn roses

A jug of Pure Bliss, Blessings and Just Joey

Warm Wishes: Fire in a petal!

Deep Secret

Danae picking a basketful of autumn's pale beauties:
Liliana, Abraham Darby and Pure Bliss. October 2011

Elegant Iceberg spray, lasting forever in a cool hall

A basket of autumn: Warm Wishes and Pure Bliss with a handful of
Peau Douce (lemon) and the velvet red Deep Secret

Warm Wishes

Peau Douce and Deep Secret. October 2011

Roses thrive in an Indian summer. October 2011

Opulent October Roses

The roses are still opulent in their autumn cloak of mellow yellow and rich red. We will have them for another week or two until we start seriously pruning and cutting back at the beginning of November. The last few weeks have been dazzling. While we had August in April and December in August the sliding axis seems tohave levelled a bit during October and the days have been warm and golden.

We are moving bushes around now. Bringing some out from the greenhouse into the show beds, where the frosts of last winter turned them into killing fields.

On the fields themselves we will tighten up the design and fill in where there were gaps. The roses being moved from the Glass House don’t get fiercely pruned until they have settled into their new beds. The earth is prepared with microryzal and all sorts of ancient wizardry including home-grown chicken manure.

Paula Pryke has been down to collect roses and work her particular magic with them, this time at a local flower club. We are going to have some special offer bouquets, designed by Paula, using our roses, for as long as possible this year (another week or two) and starting again in late Spring when they will go onto her website and ours, so look out for a treat!

On the subject of Special Offers, I have another announcement!

End of Season discounted roses – we still have so many and they look and smell so beautiful I thought I would offer them at half price for these last days of the season – so if you want something very special, a bunch or box of mixed roses (trust us on colour and we will send the best of what we have) do let us know and you willhave the last of the summer treasures at half their summer cost.

Anyone interested, please contact Gina in the office: 01206 273 565

August

It’s the middle of August, we are back from a hot two weeks in Ibiza into a much cooler, but still beautiful, English summer.

The roses are looking quite spectacular, and sometimes they are weary by August, so it is a wonderfully refreshing sight. We have thousands going out this weekend for Bank Holiday weddings and the whole garden is vibrating with colour and fragrance. Despite the rain showers we are picking in wellies and macs when necessary and the barns are as busy as they are in June and July.

The best on offer at the moment is a range of vivid reds: crimson Royal William, magenta William Shakespeare, purple Big Purple and the deep red of Deep Secret.  

For pinks the best are the delicate pale pale pink and wafting scent of Liliana and the stronger pink of Gertrude Jekyll which has come back magnificently. 

Yellows are Graham Thomas and Golden Celebration but there will be more in September and at the moment Peace is extraordinary – a huge translucent bloom going from pale pink edges to deep yellow, rather as Pure Bliss goes from the streaky red/pink outer petals to unfurl into fabulous creamy peach pink petals of fabulous proportions.

TAKE YOUR PICK – IT’S ALL THERE

Guist Hall Rose Event

Now I’m returning to July to write about a rose event and post some pictures, to shake the memory a bit, dig out the pictures and back it all comes!

We prepared an amazing rose event for Alex Gregory and her mother Stephanie Laing at Guist Hall. It require literally thousands of roses, and scented most of Norfolk into the bargain.

The house is elegant Georgian , the garden landscaped but not too severe, and there were four marquees, each of which needed rose arrangements, with the main events being a huge lunch for several hundred and a dinner dance later that evening for several hundred more.

There were roses on every table, roses in every marquee, and the house was full of roses too. It was heaven, but it was rainy. We picked in the rain, transported  in the rain (with the help of Pollencrew’s lorry and extra hands), then it started to rain the moment we arrived  at Guist Hall to prepare the flowers and there was no cover!

Soaked to the bone and shaking out dripping roses  ever other second, it was nevertheless fantastic and fun. At the end of a very long day, with four marquees and a houseful of roses under our collective belt (my team included my son Orion, our friend George Neville, my creative partner Trish Edwards and another experienced florist friend Belinda Volpellier),we were invited to share champagne and fish and chips with the family and event managers.


                            

It was a fabulous rose event, my favourite kind: friendly people who love roses, allow us to be freely creative with our unconventional but traditional unique roses and appreciate their glory from colour to texture to scent. Somehow it makes the event, whatever it is, all the more memorable, it is almost as though one remembers the scent of the day.

RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park

Although Country Roses did not exhibit at Tatton Park, Country Roses were exhibited!

Lovely floral arrangements were designed and exhibited by Sarah Collinge of Flowers with Passion in Preston. Her passion for flowers shines in this exhibit.

Thank you, Sarah for using Country Roses in your display!