Behind the Scenes - Creating Fairytales .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

One of the joys of growing heirloom roses for a living is the abundance of a beautiful and fragrant resource that helps make fairy-tales come true.  

And creating fragrant coronets for little flower-girls is one of those especially joyous things.   Tiny pink Mlle Cecile Brunner and Pink Prosperity roses brim with fragrance. Scatter with sweetly flowering lemon thyme sprigs, gossamer like gypsophilla and silver acacia leaves, all gathered from among the heirloom roses and tie with an antique fairy-pink ribbon. 

It is these moments that bring an extra layer of joy into the garden, especially for very special occasions.  And working with this bounty is just lovely ..

But the realities behind the scenes of growing a large garden of fragrant heirloom roses with perennials and annuals is not always immediately evident.  Especially if visitors see a bounty of roses and think there might be a few spare to 'give away'. Sometimes it can be very hard to say 'no' to polite requests for 'just a few roses that you can spare' , or even 'just a little bag of rosebuds' for free, of course.

But like any business, there are hidden costs, not the least being time and labour. Maintaining the roses and a large country garden costs much effort and resources, not to mention purchasing high quality heirloom rose plants from specialist growers.  

Weeding and mulching are never-ending and time intensive.  Yet these are necessary tasks as our roses are never sprayed with pesticides or fungicides and we keep weeds down through sheet mulching (sometimes with a little extra 'help').   And once these tasks are done, there are a myriad of others, many of which involve sitting behind a computer!!

But these efforts pay off and the garden starts to look respectable again with lovely roses that are safe to smell and even eat.  And we can again gather roses and run more workshops and supply special occasions with posies and other delightful things ...

So next time I'm tempted to be obliging to a polite request for 'just a few spare roses', I need only remind myself why the answer must be a definite 'no'.  

We need our roses to make fairy-tales for little flower-girls come true ..