Roses.

We have always had a weakness for roses. The fascination is partly with the scent, wafting through the warm air on a summer evening, partly with the sunlight shining through the petals and illuminating them as from within and partly with the numerous shapes and colours of the flowers.

In our garden we planted a few wild roses early on; you can read about that here. They are doing fantastic, providing pollinating insects with some easy to reach open flowers.

Last year we decided to add a few old roses as well, like the Old Apothecary Rose, the Old Pink Moss, with its curious moss cowered stems, Chapeau de Napoleon, with buds resembling hats and Rosa Mundi, which reminds us of raspberry ripple ice cream. They have put on lots of growth by now and we made some informal supports for them out of willow. These roses are mainly for use in remedies, teas, bath-salts and other home made products.

Our garden is very informal and we think they make a great addition, in a way modern hybrid roses can’t do.

We also have some beautiful scramblers and ramblers, like Paul’s Himalayan Musk, Wedding day, Rambling Rector and the ever beautiful New Dawn, growing on a living ash arch across our stream.

Roses add so much joy to the garden in June and for the first time this year, there was enough of them to pick a big, colourful bunch and bring inside.

We have spent most of our lives living in rented accommodation or without a garden big enough for growing roses and to now be able to pick them in generous amounts is a luxury almost beyond comprehension.

We hope that you are within reach of some beautiful roses this month. We think there are numerous reasons why roses are amongst the most cultivated and well-loved flowers in the world. We do not wish to name a favourite flower, but the rose will always rank pretty high on the list.