Bloomin' Roses for Flamin' June!

What a contrast in the weather between this weekend and last! But then it was the Bank Holiday weekend so the cloud, chilly wind and generally univiting weather was to be expected. There was a very noisy Steam Traction Rally in the park just across the road from me that even drowned out the (noisy) birthday barbecue next door. But I was quite happy to stay in and paint roses from my garden.

The trouble is that for every hour I spend painting, the follow-up work on the computer amounts to about 6-7 hours by the time I've scanned, resized, added text, uploaded to the PODstores with all that entails, added to my own website and catalogue and set out the card for printing. Not to mention the printing, folding, trimming and packing! It's almost enough to put me off designing a new card - but not quite! As long as I have a good long stretch of uninterrupted time, as I did this weekend, I quite enjoy it and it does leave me with a feeling of achievement. I finished late yesterday afternoon and just at that moment the sun came out and lured me into the garden with my camera.

As well as watching the progress of my 'Dreaming Spires' climbing rose, and the sweet peas I sowed last November from seeds I harvested,(below the roses in a tub) -

- I've been keeping an eye on my newest bargain climbing rose, 'Metanoia'. I paid the princely sum of £2.50 for it last Autumn and its buds have been swelling all week, looking suspiciously red for what was supposed to be an orange rose. But over the weekend the first bud finally opened -

Close-ups of flowers always put me in mind of Georgia O'Keefe and this one is no exception; I actually prefer some of her other work - but I took this one because there are some interesting colours appearing in the centre. From a distance it looks like a 'Superstar' rose and I haven't been able to find out anything about it on the internet. None of the websites that specialise in roses seem to mention 'Metanoia' and the only reference I've found is a lovely photograph on Flickr, which shows off it's wavy-edged petals beautifully.

Having photographed my new addition from every possible angle, I turned to go back into the house and had quite a shock! Whilst keeping a beady eye on my 'Dreaming Spires' and 'Metanoia', I had completely failed to notice that my 'Alchemist' is blooming (top right-hand corner) and it looks as if it started several days ago!

This one was a much more expensive rose - kindly bought for me from a Garden Centre as a birthday present a few years ago. It's an extraordinary rose - the colour of the blooms gradually changes from deep golden yellow -

- to peachy cream and then to deep pink as it opens!

But my absolutely favourite climbing rose is 'Albertine'! I love the way it grows on short crooked stems - though a challenge to arrange in a vase! - and even the buds are attractive. But once it comes out, the fragrance is stunning. At the moment it's still in bud and looks as if it could be a few weeks before it flowers; but it's definitely worth waiting for!

 

And in case you're wondering why I'm so preoccupied with climbing roses, my garden is very small but has high side walls with trellises on top of them, with the garage wall at one end and the house at the other. I haven't gone so far as to create a true Patrick Blanc-style 'vertical garden' but it does make sense to make the most of the vertical surfaces when the horizontal ones are in such short supply!

At last we've had some heavy rain overnight and this morning and it's freshened things up and saved me the job of watering. Although the weekend weather was cool and dull, at least the Bank Holiday Monday events won't have been rained off.

(The T-shirt and mug that I made from one of this weekend's watercolour rose paintings, is showing up in the Zazzle panel right down at the foot of the page.)