A little taste of 'yellow' in the rose garden! .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

Yellow is not my favourite colour in the garden.  Yet I am drawn to soft muted forms of yellow, such as cream, burnished gold and especially lemon.  In fact yellow and white are often found  together in nature.  And because they go together naturally, they give a feeling of freshness and warmth to our rose garden's colour scheme.

This natural combination can be seen often around the garden, such as in this lovely white flowering 'butterfly bush' or Buddleia.  The yellow centre in each of the tiny flowers brightens and complements the whole bush.  And the fragrance is honey-sweet.  No wonder the butterflies love it so much! 

This combination of yellow and white is also seen in the lovely climbing Noisette rose, Lamarque, loved for its fragrant white flowers that are highlighted in the centre with yellow tipped stamens.  And the fragrance also has a hint of lemon!

And then there's the exquisite Tea rose, Perle de Jardins, with soft lemon buds and blooms. The fully opened flowers are beautiful in bouquets and have a soft, dry tea fragrance that doesn't overpower a hand-held bouquet.  

The well-lovedTea rose, Lady Hillingdon, is often referred to as an apricot colour, but when the open flower is back-lit by sunlight it is hard to decide if the colour is soft buttery yellow, or just burnished gold!  Strangely, the fragrance is often likened to apricots with a hint of dry tea leaves!

For a true rich yellow, there is the Hybrid Tea rose, Candlelight.  We don't grow many modern Hybrid Teas in our heirloom rose gardens, but this one fits well with the heritage roses and is a lovely cut flower.  

One of the other few modern roses we grow for their cut flowers is the Hybrid Tea, Elina. This rose has proven itself to be tough in a difficult situation and produces the loveliest creamy, soft yellow roses.  They're wonderful in bouquets and also blend well with our heirloom roses.

And I can't resist the bright little buttons of  the herb, Tansy.  We grow it among the heirloom roses where it brightens up a little corner in the garden.  This is a tough herb and provides colour almost all year round.  Although it has a pungent perfume you don't need many of its yellow buttons to look gorgeous in posies and bouquets.  

Then there's the white Autumn crocus that grows at the feet of some of our heirloom roses.  Usually it is only identified by a clump of thin leaves, but in Autumn the white flowers open to reveal bright yellow stamens.  A delightful seasonal flourish in the garden!

And finally, one of my favourites in the garden, the lemon buds of the Hybrid Musk rose, Pax.   This lovely arching rose bush was bred in the early 20th Century by the Reverend Pemberton who founded the Hybrid Musk roses.  The buds open to slightly double, large white rose blooms, but it is the lemon buds that I love.  They're 'divine' in posies, too. 

So there it is, a little taste of 'yellow' in the garden!  

‘Flora Therapeia’ (Flower Therapy)

At ‘Edgeworth Lley’ we love to share the benefits and enjoyment of living and working in a beautiful heirloom rose garden through our nature based workshops.

Horticulture therapy is well known for its benefits for people with mental health issues, physical disabilities, people with dementia, and long term unemployed youth, just to name a few. But we know that everyone can benefit from spending some time with nature.  An example is the growing awareness of the importance of ‘nature play’ for children’s development. 

We take our nature based workshops a little step further and use flowers, especially fragrant heirloom roses, as our focus.   Studies have shown that simply smelling the fragrance of roses can bring about a sense of joy and begin the journey of recovery from despair. 

Our Flora Therapeia (Flower Therapy) workshops are designed to assist people in their journey of recovery from trauma and grief.   The natural green space of rolling hills in which our country garden sits provides a safe natural environment where people can spend time touching and smelling the roses. 

The scientific and therapeutic basis for our nature based Flora Therapeia workshops at Edgeworth Lley is an environmental psychology theory called Attention Restoration Theory.  Engagement with the natural environment quiets emotional cognition and facilitates a sense of well-being.  The effort for an individual to focus on the natural environment is effortless, (referred to as ‘soft fascination’), which in turn enables the mind to rest from thoughts of fear, sadness or anxiety, for example.  

In short, spending time in nature is good for the brain, developing new neural pathways that support emotional wellbeing.

I have conducted numerous workshops in my other life as an academic, researching this theory and observing the benefits to individuals from a broad spectrum of backgrounds.  But the common factor is that each person discovers or re-discovers the benefits of ‘just being’ in a natural environment, whether that is a small garden, a park, at the beach, picking flowers or just sitting under a tree.

Time and time again we have seen people relaxing and enjoying the fragrance, texture and colour of our heirloom roses at our workshops.  Sometimes individuals discover for the first time that they can do something ‘creative’ that is beautiful.  Some re-capture their love of flowers and creating, or suddenly realise they can lose themselves just smelling the roses and enjoying the green space around them.    For others it is just a time of ‘breathing’ and focussing on something other than their trauma or grief. 

So when did you last have your ‘fix’ of nature?  

Perhaps it’s time now to seek out a little green space, even a few potted plants on a balcony, and ‘just be’ in nature.  For information about our Flora Therapeia workshops find Edgeworth Lley-Heirloom Roses on Facebook and send us a message.    

A Mid-Summer Garden

A mid-summer garden in a sub-tropical climate such as ours is very much at the mercy of seasonal changes. All gardens have their challenges, ever-changing and shifting with the seasons, and AT MY ROSE GARDEN the impact of summer is readily evident.  The very nature of gardens though is that each season has challenges as well as spectacular offerings; like gorgeous sunsets and looming clouds heralding summer storms.  

Until the summer rains come, the garden is suffering from limited water, hot winds and high temperatures. And our grey, cracking clay soil becomes parched and splits to reveal deep crevices.  Our mantra is 'mulch and more mulch' but as a relatively young garden we are years away from a deep rich soil that retains moisture well.  Nevertheless we are seeing positive changes in the soil, with the garden beds showing signs of improvement in the soil structure.  

And this means that despite (or due to) the heat, flowering herbs and other lovely things are thriving; feverfew, tansy and cosmos to name a few!  

While some roses are flagging temporarily, other roses have taken no notice of the mid-summer heat wave. Take for example the Noisette rose, Milkmaid.  Bred to cope with Australian conditions by Alistair Clark in 1925, she has romped untidily to the top of a large archway, threatening to greet and overtake Lamarque (also a Noisette) creeping up the other side.  Unlike Lamarque, Milkmaid flowers only in Spring, so we are expecting a wonderful display of creamy white blooms this Spring.

Rosa Laevigata is equally exuberant, almost completely covering an entire arbour on her own.  Her thorns are strong and hooked, perfect for climbing but a little dangerous if you venture too near.  Even though she is a Spring flowering rose too, she will get a good trim before Autumn.  She is already so large that a quick haircut will make little difference to the Spring display!

And the Tea rose, Mrs B R Cant, continually offers up her strawberry pink, blowsy blooms no matter the weather.   She is a reliable bloomer, coping well with extreme weather conditions throughout summer, from hot and dry through to soggy and wet.  And I know that she always has several gorgeous, Tea scented flowers and exquisite fat buds just ready for picking.  In fact, I think she thrives on having her flowers picked so she can produce even more! 

Then there's the gorgeous, pale pink New Dawn, covering her arch in one season.  And Comtesse de la Barthe blooming away with her porcelain pink blooms.  The climbing form of Comtesse de la Barthe is competing with New Dawn as to who reaches the other side of their arch first!  



And who can dismiss the lovely creamy blooms of the early Hybrid Musk, Pax, perpetually blooming through all that summer can throw at it.

Half the fun of creating a garden is that it never stays static and each season has its own special features. And now is the time to enjoy and appreciate this season's delights.

'Tis the season .. to make memories at Christmas

I have always loved Christmas with its sights sounds and smells .. bright lights, colourful decorations and the fragrances that make up memories of Christmas times' past.  Growing up with the Australian bush at our back door, the smells of Christmas featured earthy yet spicy aromas of eucalyptus trees in the brilliant heat of an Australian summer. 

Our Christmas tree was a branch from a row of radiata pines planted by my grandmother.  The spicy smell of the resin from the pine is quintessentially Christmas for me.

But the joy of celebrating Christmas is that we can create new memories for ourselves and loved ones.  It doesn't need to be expensive.  What wealth there is in one rose filled with hundreds of petals.  And being surrounded by the fragrance of heirloom roses blooming in the heat of December is an opportunity to build new memories for our grandchildren.

New traditions;  An Australian native casuarina pine as our Christmas tree;  Long lunches groaning with fresh Australian seafood and salads;  Cold plum pudding with cool, creamy custard.  And after all the day's excitement, a relaxing evening walk in the garden with Pop trialling new 'child-sized' watering cans left under the Christmas tree.    

And new games to learn; like smelling and sniffing the roses .. before plucking the petals and tossing them in the air laughing and giggling.  This last trick taught by a mischievous uncle!  

And enjoying the riches of simple moments in simple surroundings creating life-long memories for another generation.  Even if families are separated by miles, laughter and fun can still be shared with the magic of today's technologies.

Oh, the joy of celebrating Christmas .. 

Merry Christmas !!

Drying Botanicals for Fragrance and Colour .. AT MY ROSE GARDEN

After all the hard work of planting and growing heirloom roses, the joy of gathering up buckets brimming with roses, flowering herbs and assorted flowers and foliage is one of my all-time favourite  luxuries. 

Then there's the fun part of arranging posies and bouquets for special requests and occasions.  But after all the bouquets are wrapped and picked up or delivered, there are always left-overs.  

Being one of the last baby boomers, with parents who had grown up in the war years, wastefulness was never tolerated.  And childhood lessons are often hard to shake, so I have always felt uncomfortable throwing away left-over lovelies, like single roses, fragrant herbs and foliage.  

So I have decided to gather up spare roses and left-over bunches of herbs like feverfew and lemon thyme, and hang them to dry in my downstairs 'studio'.  

I'm gathering a little collection now and they're starting to look lovely .. little bunches and posies dangling in the breeze.

In fact, they're looking so lovely that I've started to pick and dry posies and bunches of roses and herbs on purpose .. just to hang and dry.

The fragrance is lovely .. softer and more muted than the strong scent of freshly cut roses and herbs .. but still very present.

So now whenever there's a bounty in the garden, or I need to dead-head roses, instead of throwing them out I gather up bunches and hang them upside down.

And they're just lovely hanging from the rafters!!!

So now I'm selling pretty little posies of dried botanicals that don't wither in the sun and heat and don't need to have their water changed daily ..

A perfect little gift for that difficult someone to buy for ..

Contact me via Facebook: Edgeworth Lley - Heirloom Roses if you'd like to place an order.