Roses, the June Birth Month Flower, Love them or Leave them?

This photo is a few years old now and the Alchemist, on the left, has spread quite a lot further - now the Alchemist reaches almost up to the bedroom window!

When I moved into my house in Abergavenny, the back garden didn’t inspire me one bit. 

It was just a very neat, square patch of grass, some fruit trees up against the neighbour’s wall, a few miserable shrubs and some bush roses. Decidedly dreary!

One of the first things I did was move the shrubs and roses to the front garden, one each day so as not to strain my dodgy back. 

I must admit, I’m not a great fan of bush roses. 

Maybe it’s because they’re not very sociable, they don’t much like to be planted in beds with other flowers. And if they do tolerate sharing a bed with other plants, I always think they look about out of place.

Not the case with climbing and rambling roses – my favourites!

My favourite, Albertine, last summer - the best view from my bedroom window!

My garden is small with high walls on all sides, the garage at the far end, the house at the near end and walls, topped with trellis on the other two sides.

Roses round the door!

Although I love the privacy and shelter it gives me, it also means that sunlight on the flower beds is limited so the plants grow up towards the light – perfect for climbers and ramblers.

I could almost pick these Albertine Roses from the bedroom window!

As a painter and pattern-maker it is important to me to have a variety of flowers close at hand as ‘models’ for my art and design work. 

So, as well as borders full of various flowering plants, I have other climbers too – Honeysuckle, Clematis and climbing Sweet Pea for example.

Once the roses start to bloom, I know I shall have flowers to photograph and paint for months to come. My Alchemist began to bloom in mid-April this year and the Dreaming Spires wasn’t far behind it. 

Here's one of my 'Albertine' June Birthday Cards:

Custom Front Vintage Pink Roses June Birthday Card by helikettle

Click

HERE

for hundreds more

'Rose'

Greeting Cards and Gifts

This year, for the first time, my Dreaming Spires has climbed all over the Albertine which is ready to flower once the Dreaming Spires has finished – for now! (It often flowers again later in the summer if I dead-head it regularly.)

The only way I can see this view of my Dreaming Spires is from my bedroom window. It looks even more magnificent from my neighbour's kitchen!

The Alchemist is a fascinating rose! 

Its buds are cream, tinged with red, opening to pink that transforms into deep yellow, then finally back again to creamy white.

Both this Oil Pastel Painting and the Photograph just below it are Alchemist Roses at different stages of their blooming!

Cream Roses Birthday Card by helikettle
   

'Alchemist' Rose Mousepad by helikettle
 

I think we all know that roses are associated with love and romance. But did you know that it’s not quite that straightforward? The number of roses is significant, as is the colour. 

Most of my roses were bargains from a local DIY store.
This Metanoia is another one that keeps changing colour
and it didn't cost much more than £2!

You can read about the meanings of roses HERE – though I’ve read elsewhere that yellow roses can signify jealousy or infidelity. So beware!

... . ...

As well as the gorgeous colours, the Albertine
 has a very distinctive (and wonderful!) fragrance.

"I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds 'round my neck" - Emma Goldman

I agree - how about you?

The Race of the Roses

There I was, wondering which of my climbing roses would be first to bloom this year - it's usually the 'Dreaming Spires' and it's looking promising, covered in buds and almost ready to open -

But the 'Albertine', the one that usually flowers for my birthday in June, is a close contender this year -

But it was only while I was taking these photos that I noticed that the 'Alchemist' has quietly pipped both of them at the post!

Nobody seems to have told it that it's still only April!

.

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.)