Heritage Rose Petal Teas .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

One of the loveliest ways to enjoy the fragrance of rose petals is in a cup of tea!  No, not just a whole bloom plunked in a cup of hot water!  

Think about it, we drink camellia leaves (Camellia sinensis) in the form of black tea without considering what we are drinking!  The camellia leaves are treated in numerous ways to give us a range of teas, black, green, white and range of various flavours that often signify the region the camellia is grown. 

Similarly, there is an art to mixing our own dried pesticide-free rose petals with other dried herbs and teas.  An art we are perfecting to create our own signature rose petal tea.  A rose petal tea with a fragrant aroma that helps to calm and de-stress.  You won't believe the fragrance!

Of course, we love the ritual of tea making too, as it also has a calming effect.  The habit of making a cup of tea signifies a lovely pause to a busy day and gives our brains a moment to relax.  

And what better way to enjoy a cup of rose petal tea than in the garden.  Even better, if the tea is surrounded with friends and scrumptious food.  

Or, perhaps a tray set up for one, with a lovely tea pot and china cup.  A lovely daily ritual, guaranteed to improve your day.  

Loose tea leaves are the preferred way of making a proper cup of tea.  Tea always tastes better if its brewed in a teapot and poured into a china cup.  Just another part of the ritual of taking time-out.  And I read recently that even tea-bags use plastic to seal each tiny tea bag, so it's more sustainable to use loose tea leaves.  

So watch this space as we put together a range of rose petal and herb teas that we plan to serve here in our gardens, 




or purchased separately.  


Just message us to book a high tea in the gardens, or purchase our loose leaf rose petal tea separately.  

Health Benefits of Rose Petals #1 ... AT MY ROSE GARDEN

Did you know that rose petals grown without pesticides have positive side effects!  Yes!  That's right!  We all know that rose hips (heps) have a high Vitamin C content, which happens to be more than found in oranges! 

But rose petals have side effects that  also benefit our mental health!  And I'm not talking about musty, dried up rose petals you can purchase on-line for a few cents from who knows where! 

I am talking about locally grown, fresh or dried rose petals that have been hand-harvested from heritage  roses grown without pesticides.  Heritage roses have proven over  the generations that they are tough, require less water and resources to grow than more recent hybrid roses.   And most important of all, they have a naturally, strong rose fragrance.   

(Oh, and yes, we do sell fresh, heritage rose petals to our local customers.)

Have you ever sniffed a rose and been disappointed there was no fragrance?  Unfortunately, this is the usual experience with supermarket bought roses.  And these roses are not suitable for using in food or skin care products because they may have been dipped in pesticides, fungicides and even herbicides!  So smelling a supermarket bought rose could have side effects that are not good for our health! 

Rose petals plucked from pesticide free roses, grown locally have numerous healthy side effects.  The fragrance of roses is known to help with feelings of anxiety and sadness, and even grief.  

Take a handful of fragrant petals, or whole roses, that you know are pesticide free and hold them close to your nose.  Breathe in deeply.  Be careful, you may find yourself beginning to relax.  Another positive side effect of breathing in the fragrance of roses is gaining a sense of joy! 


Try it for yourself and see! 

You just might be pleasantly surprised!  

I'd love to hear of your experience once you do try smelling the roses for yourself.  Find us on Facebook and tell us about it!  

Imagine this! ... AT MY ROSE GARDEN

I wonder what it would look like if we all did a little gardening.  I mean, as in real gardening; not professionally landscaped gardens with hard surfaces and pristine hedges that often grace life-style magazine covers.

I'm talking about the 'getting your hands grubby and mucking about in the soil' style of gardening.  Gardening that takes a bit of grunt. Effort that exerts and brings out a sweat; the type of sweat you'd pay expensive gym membership for.  

The term 'gardening' appears to be a bit of a 'turn off' these days.  The idea of getting dirt under your finger nails is decidedly disgusting to some people.  I've even seen people shudder at the idea!  

But what if we actually took up real gardening; the type of gardening our grandparents or great-grandparents took for granted.  You know, where they grew their own fresh vegetables and herbs and took pride in their harvest.  Where vegetables grown in the garden were prized for their freshness and taste; and were never discarded just because they were an odd shape or size.

And where herbs and flowers were grown in the garden and given as thoughtful gifts.  Where it wasn't unusual to actually know the name of numerous flowers.  Where cuttings and seeds were swapped with neighbours and friends, carefully transplanted and sown by their new owners. 

Nowadays, we often refer to these vegetables and flowers grown only a generation or so ago as heirloom or heritage varieties.  They're no longer common but unusual.  And the growing and nurturing of them is seen as a less than valuable activity; something to do when you've retired or too old to be much use elsewhere.  

Gardening is almost scorned by the average consumer these days, it seems.  The disconnect between fresh food and the soil it grows in is widening.  This is demonstrated in the supermarket in myriad examples; the young checkout person needs help identifying previously common vegetables and fruits; small sticky labels on single pieces of fruit often the only clue as to the identity of the fruit.  And only certain sizes and shapes of fruits and vegetables are acceptable apparently, leaving vast quantities of perfectly edible fruit and vegetables dumped by the tonne.  

Such wastage was seen as a huge sin by my parents and grandparents who had each grown up in the era of world wars and depressions.  Food was a scarce resource and if you were fortunate to be able to grow your own, you were indeed blessed.

Along with such wastage is the loss of the basic skills of gardening; taken for granted a generation or so ago.  We have lost so much knowledge; understanding the seasons, an appreciation for the vast variety of fruits and vegetables that can be grown; knowing how to preserve gluts of vegetables and fruit; a basic understanding of horticulture. 

If we all took up a little gardening and re-learnt some lost skills, perhaps we'd develop some independence from vast food chains that supply us with non-food.  And we might even grow a generation that has a new appreciation for nature, and the soil our food is grown in.  We might even develop a taste for fresh food and fresh flowers that don't resemble anything we'd find in large supermarkets and food halls.  

We'd certainly be healthier, more connected to our neighbours and community as we share gluts of fresh food and flowers.  We might even develop a new appreciation for the joys of gardening!  

Imagine that!  

The Art of Living from the Garden .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

The garden can be a wonderful metaphor for living.  Just as in every-day life, things can get a bit overwhelming here in the heirloom rose gardens at Edgeworth Lley.  

After all the Summer rains, the weeds are threatening to take over the rose gardens.  All I can see are weeds encroaching on garden beds painstakingly carved out from the paddocks. I dare not take photos of these areas as they're certainly not part of the vision of a large country rose garden.  

From a gardener's perspective, the task of bringing the garden back into some sense of order is a little overwhelming.   But, just as I've learnt when undertaking large tasks, like writing a Doctoral thesis, it's best to focus on one  idea or area, at a time.  

Once I do that, the large task, or idea, becomes doable.  In fact, it becomes enjoyable achieving one small thing at a time.  And before you know it, a whole lot has been achieved, which is hugely satisfying.  

Gradually, instead of the weeds encroaching on the garden beds, I am encroaching on the weeds and releasing the roses, shrubs and perennials from the smothering pasture grasses.  And the mounds of weeds are relegated to where they belong; in a pile waiting to be burnt.  The ashes from the pile, rich in potash, will then help fertilise the roses in Autumn.  And so the cycle continues.  

But to get to my main point of this article, I think the weeds in the garden are a good analogy for the overwhelm we can feel in our busy every-day lives.  We get swept up into a frenzy of busy, busy, while feeling as though we've lost control of the important.  

The same approach for undertaking the task of weeding the garden can also be taken in our ordinary, every days.  For example, one source of over-whelm is social media.  I rely on social-media every-day, but I've learnt this can induce a sense of business while encroaching on time I need to perform real tasks (like weeding)!  Instead of being tuned in all the time, I now have 'quality' time on social-media; quarantining it to certain times of the day.  The pressure of performing, formally or informally every day and every waking moment can be exhausting.  

But, how to relieve this pressure without isolating ourselves and becoming hermits?  I believe one way is to re-connect with the natural environment.  This may sound impractical in our busy lives.  Yet, there are easy ways to include the natural environment throughout our day.  Just looking at a tree has been shown to rest our minds and refresh our thinking.  And in my research, connecting with nature has been shown to relieve depression and anxiety.  In fact, recent research shows that putting our hands in the soil actually exposes us to microbes that benefit mental health.  And probably improves our overwhelmed immune systems too!  

We have lost our connection with nature to the detriment of our quality of life.  And this has also impacted on our ability to experience  'wonderment'; the art of seeing ordinary things as little miracles.  If you allow a small child  to explore a garden, they will quickly show you what 'wonderment' looks like; pulling a rose apart and allowing the petals to fall in a shower of confetti to the ground; scrunching up gum leaves and sniffing their scent; spying a butterfly and exclaiming with delight as it flies almost within reach;  or just walking on scrunchy leaves purely for the sound effects!

Perhaps if we took moments everyday to re-connect with the natural environment, we'd experience a little more joy in our ordinary, every-day lives.  And if we passed on this lost 'skill' to our children and grandchildren, we would be giving them life-long skills that build resilience and foster a sense of joy.  


A precious legacy indeed.  

New Year Planting .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

Can it really be 2018? 
The Christmas season for 2017 has come and gone too quickly.  
A wonderful time with family and getting to spend precious time with grandchildren. 

The New Year is an opportunity to remember how very blessed we are, even though it has been a year of challenges too.  

And looking ahead to the New Year unfolding before us I am reminded that gardening is a wonderful metaphor for hope.  As gardeners, we plant seeds in the dark, damp soil hoping that they will sprout and grow. 

Of course, planting a seed is only the beginning.  If we've planned ahead, we know that we are planting seeds that will produce either flowers for beauty, or food for nourishment, or even a tree to shade and shelter us from the elements. 

Sometimes though, gardening can throw up surprises.  Planting miss-labelled seeds, to find that instead of growing vegetables, we've planted fragrant flower seeds instead.  Yet, these aren't wasted. 

Flowers provide forage for bees that in turn pollinate our food producing plants, like fruit trees.  In gardening, sometimes surprises turn out to be just what was needed.  

And planting too many flowers can never be a bad thing!  

So this year, I'm planning to plant more flowers than ever!  

Rose Workshops, Floral Retreats .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

We're planning lots for 2018; Rose Workshops, Floral Retreats, Flowery Morning Teas, Gourmet Petals and Rose Petal Balms!  And we're extending our gardens so we can grow even more fragrant heritage 'n heirloom roses!  Here's what's been happening so far!

It's been a while since I last wrote a blog.  In a topsy turvy year with lots of lovely events, like a new grandbaby, and just general busyness, the rose gardens have been slowly chugging along.  That's it though, just chugging along.  

The general busyness though has been to do with keeping the rose gardens alive during  a long, hot, and very brutal drought. Hand watering the gardens daily, until our newly dug out dam ran out.  My innovative husband came to the rescue and filled a small water tank from council water taps just to keep the precious roses and trees alive.  

It was very hard to see the heritage and heirloom roses struggle, although I told myself that heritage roses are tough.  They've had to be! 
Still, even with all the effort to keep the gardens alive,  I seriously considered mowing the whole of the roses down and allowing the ground to revert to rough paddock.  

But then the rain came and we all in our little nook of the world rejoiced!  And it rained and rained and rained.  And it hasn't really stopped .. yet!  And I couldn't be happier!   
I had purchased more bare-rooted heritage roses earlier in the year in the hope that we'd eventually get rain. And I potted these up so I could water them regularly and keep a close eye on them in the hope it would eventually rain.

Now with all the rain, I could confidently plant more precious heritage roses out in new beds in the rose gardens.  And the gardens are looking better than they've ever looked, albeit with an extra girth of weeds attempting to take over!

So, now we're gathering basket loads of our gorgeously fragrant roses to dry for our gourmet rose petals and use in our rose petal balms. 

And we're planning more floral workshops where we teach beautiful ways of using roses .. 

As well as our lovely floral retreat mornings (or afternoons) where you discover the therapeutic benefits of fragrant roses and gardens .. 

And we're extending the gardens so that we can host flowery morning or afternoon teas for you and your friends, or that special hen's party or birthday party.  

So if you'd like to spend an hour or three wandering around smelling the roses set in the rolling hills of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, we'd love to host you.  Just private message us on Facebook 'Edgeworth Lley-Heirloom Roses'.  Oh, and we're on Instagram too @lillianheirloomroses.

We'd love to hear from you!  

Creating Beautiful (4) Growing our own Fresh Food and Flowers .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

In the fourth in our series on Creating Beautiful in our every-day lives, I explore just how simple it is to grow even a little of our own produce, both food and flowers.  And you don't need acres of fertile farm land to do this.  A tiny, sunny corner of the garden, or just a few pots, some potting mix and seeds or seedlings will get you started. It's not complicated either because you don't need a lot of expertise or time to succeed in growing even one or two herbs, a tomato plant, colourful flowers such as pansies, or even all of them together in one large pot. Or perhaps a pot of strawberries and fennel flowering and producing lovely soft fruits and fragrant fronds for the dinner table.  (You can even use flowering fennel fronds in cut flower arrangements!)

Once you've started, there is nothing more satisfying than growing even one or two of your own vegetables and herbs.  The fresh snap of a newly picked zucchini, or the sweetness of your own strawberries can't be replicated by store bought produce. And the fresh fragrance and taste of your own herbs is far superior to the usually wilted bunches found in your local supermarket.  



Most of us think this is unattainable with our busy lives and can only be found in stylised life-style magazines.  Yet, the reality is that even one or two pots on your doorstep, or on the balcony, will supply an abundance of home-grown vegetables, herbs and soft fruits.   And with as little attention as keeping a watering can nearby (you may even start a collection of antique watering cans!) for a quick watering most days will reward you with something of your own produce to add a flourish and freshness to your meals.  

It is also a wonderful thing to teach our children and can help to establish a gentle beginning to the evening routine after a busy day out in the frantic rush of every-day life.  In other words, diverting even a few moments to a garden plant or two can help to relax and calm us down.   And we get the benefit of at least some fresh food that has not been trucked and then stored for days, weeks or even months before we buy and consume it.  We also know it has not been fumigated with toxins and packaged in plastic within an inch of its life (or ours)!

In the same way, we can grow flowers for our own use and as gifts for friends and family.  Again, even a pot or two can produce lovely, fragrant cut flowers for our own joy and delight.  And unlike most cut flowers purchased in supermarkets or from florists, home-grown flowers are not sprayed with fumigants to make them last longer than nature intended.  (In fact, smelling store bought flowers is a little risky when you know what they may have been dipped or sprayed with!)

I think there is nothing lovelier than a bunch of home-grown cut flowers (even if a few misplaced weeds find their way into the arrangement .. which by the way is right on trend!) Home-grown flowers are reminiscent of times past where flowers as gifts, or for the house, were always cut from the garden; your own or a neighbour's.  Home-grown flowers have a life and energy that is very different to the stiff, scentless soldiers generally found in the supermarket.  

And home-grown flowers are seasonal, so you appreciate their fragrance and beauty even more as a result.  What a wonderful gift to teach our children and grandchildren about the natural rhythm of the seasons; that there are flowers that flourish in winter and different flowers that grow in spring and summer.  

It's a little bit special watching flowers go to seed so that they can be saved for next season .. where the cycle of life starts all over again. How fun to teach little fingers how to plant seeds into fresh earth and wait for the first green leaves to appear.  Snow peas are perfect for this.  Plant seeds saved from last season's crop in late autumn and wait for the flowers to appear in early spring! 

None of this is difficult in terms of money, time or expertise, yet the rewards are priceless!  

So ... what will you plant in your garden or pot this week?  

Whatever, it is .. enjoy it and have fun!