Take a virtual peep over the garden fence and see what real gardeners are getting up to right now. Have a look at Michelle’s blog for more blog posts around the country.
Mum and I spent the weekend planting the cut flower garden and messing about with roses. Is there anything more glorious than a basket of scented roses at dusk.
My favourite rose is Madam Isaac Pereire, the deep pink rose on the right. Such a wonderful old-fashioned scent, and flowers on and off all summer. I’ve got it growing over a pergola walk from the back of the house right round to the front drive.
You can just see my wedding cake tree in the background, Cornus controversa variegata. It’s smothered in white flowers at the moment. A shrub that’s interesting all year round. Also spreading along the pergola is pale pink Constance Spry. A fleeting beauty- it only flowers once.
Regular readers will know that I take cut flowers to my MIL Joan who can’t visit my garden as often as she would like. If she can’t come to me, I take my garden to her. Flower arranging is something we both love. Joan was on the flower rota at Cosby Chapel for 65 years. So I never arrange the flowers I take to her. They are tied loosely with string. And she can spend an enjoyable time creating little posies and filling vases for every windowsill in the house. My cut flower patch this year contains sweetpeas, butterfly gladioli, cosmos,rudbeckia,sweet williams, love-in-a-mist, sunflowers, and pot marigolds.
I grow roses on the veg plot for cut flowers. Rhapsody in Blue is a beauty, and repeat flowers too.
The veg plot runs alongside the boundary hedge, 15 feet high and dripping with arcs of wild roses. I use them in my flower bouquets, and the hips are useful for Christmas decorations.
Here’s a peek into my potting shed tonight. I’ve used the pink roses to make a flower wreath for the summerhouse. Ivy and elderflowers fill in the gaps.
The scent drifts in on the breeze.
I hope you’ve enjoyed a tour of my garden, as it is right now -on Sunday 4th June. Are there any roses you particularly love? Do you grow cut flowers for friends and family, like I do. Do get in touch and let me know.
For more information on this Chelsea Fringe event click on the highlighted words. It’s my first time joining in and it was fun to be part of the gardening community sharing photos of our gardens and what we are growing right now. You can also find more on instagram and twitter, searching for the hashtag #mygardenrightnow . I am @kgimson on twitter and karengimson1 on instagram. Not very exciting tag names, I know, but do come and say hello if you can.
Bramble Garden 
Pingback: Six on Saturday – a walk around my garden -15 June 2019 | Bramble Garden
So beautiful!!!
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Thank you
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I’ve just bought Rhapsody in Blue and haven’t yet found a place for it, thinking about growing it in a pot, what do you think? So pleased that you mentioned butterfly gladioli, they are some of my favourites and never seem to get much air play. You roses are a joy. Would love to see your garden one day …. x
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Hi Gill, if you’ve got a really huge pot you’d be ok. Otherwise the watering would be a pain and they grow to 4ft, despite the label saying short. If you can keep the pot by your back door and throw a pan of water a day over it you’d be ok. I discovered butterfly gladioli by mistake when I brought the wrong bulbs. I was so pleased with them, I bought them on purpose this year 🙂 Have a lovely weekend xx
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Great Blooms!
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The roses are so lush and beautiful…it’s always a delight to visit your lovely gardens.
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Thank you. So kind x
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Thank you Marsha. You are so kind. x
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Such beautiful roses. My favourite is James Galway – flowering beautifully this Year. 😊
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All the roses are flowering well this year. Luckily I’ve chosen roses that stand up to the rain, it’s torrential here today. All the best with your garden. I’ll look out for James Galway rose.
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‘Ring a ring a roses’ look lovely over your great looking summerhouse. It is difficult to choose a favourite Rose, the Generous Gardener is VG and celebrates gardeners contributions to the NGS.
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I’m very fond of the Generous Gardener Rose and try to plant it in every garden I work on. Mum and I are firm fans of the NGS and spend most weekends visiting open gardens. We have had cause to be very grateful to the cancer charities NGS supports over the years, in our own family. Thanks again for reading and for your kind comments, Brian. Much appreciated. All the best. Karen
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That is the most sensuously beautiful post I have ever read! I can smell the roses and they all look so intoxicatingly fresh. Thank you,
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Thank you for your kind comments. Do you write a blog too ?
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What a gorgeous wreath, Karen – how long will the roses last like this? I wonder what the Chelsea Fringe blog event was about – sounds fun!
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Hi Cathy, I’m just whizzing round the garden collecting my Monday vase flowers. It’s rained all night so everything’s pretty soggy here. The roses smell so gorgeous in the rain. Well, the roses were conditioned overnight, so should last 4 days. Plus it’s cooler now, so that has an effect. The elderflower flopped overnight, so I’m conditioning some now to replace it. The ivy wreath based on a recycled foam circle base will last three weeks. So what I do is just take a few flowers out and add fresh every few days. It only takes a minute. And it gives a kind of feeling of celebration to the garden, along with the candles in jam jars and the homemade floral bunting ( I’ve used the girls dresses from when they were little.) A sort of party atmosphere in the garden for not much money. The blog post was part of a Chelsea Fringe event. I think it’s a great idea- letting us all get involved, wherever we live. There’s a linky thing to add your post, which I haven’t used before. You can go over to http://vegplotting.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/mygardenrightnow-for-chelsea-fringe.html to find out more and read the other blogs taking part. I also posted two photos to instagram and a few to twitter using the hashtag #mygardenrightnow. Thanks for reading and for your kind comments about the wreath. x
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Thanks for the info Karen – and good idea to replace bits and pieces in your wreath
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Lovely post and pictures. It sure has been a good year for roses. xx
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Thank you Mike. And you ought to see my pot marigolds. They are doing so well this year. They obviously like the funny weather we’ve been having. Hope all’s well with your plot. Just catching up on blogs now. Been so busy with work, but not complaining. Love karen x
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Hi Karen, roses have certainly proved to be the flower of the moment this time around in #mygardenrightnow. This is the first time I’ve seen them used for a floral wreath. I think you’re the only person I know who makes them on a regular basis, rather than just at Christmas. It’s a great idea. I like how you’ve arranged your cutting patch – quite different to mine which is all regimented rows. I must think about what will work for mine on the allotment next year.
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Aren’t the roses fabulous this year. I can’t remember a time when they were so healthy and full of flower. The weather seems to have suited them, as I never cosset mine. They are never fed or pruned- apart from taking flowers for cutting, which is a way of pruning I suppose. And never sprayed.The birds eat greenfly and bugs. Mum and I had a happy hour sitting in the summerhouse watching a fledgling family of long tailed tits. Their acrobatics were so enchanting- they seemed to flow through the trees like circus performers on a high wire act. A few times we held our breath as they dangled from a twig. But all was well as they got to grips with unfamiliar wings and tails. It was a magic moment and we felt so lucky to capture it. Thanks so much for hosting the Chelsea Fringe blog event. I really enjoyed taking part and am madly catching up on other writers gardens all around the country. It’s good to feel part of a community. x
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Oh that sounds wonderful! I’m always amazed to see my roses groaning with aphids one day and a few days later they’ve magically gone, usually thanks to the antics of the blue tits.
I realised when I had my blog break that I’d been missing the sense of community in blogging for a while (before the break)… and having a blogging project to do, so it’s really helped me get my blogging mojo back again 🙂
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One of the unexpected bonuses of deciding to have cut flower beds is that there are enough flowers to give to others. Roses aren’t really my thing because they don’t grow well for me in my light soil. But I admire yours.
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I am rather envious of your glorious sweet peas, Madonna lilies and larkspur. You are ahead of me with all of those. Plus our weather has suddenly taken a nose dive into windswept rain and cooler temperatures. 12 degrees today. Thanks for reading and getting in touch. Just catching up with your garden blog now. Been such a busy time with Chelsea and now chatsworth. x
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I wish I’d decided to go to Chatsworth rather than Chelsea which was rather disappointing. It’s creeping up to 30 C today but there’s a breeze which is nice for me but not so much for the plants.
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I’m really looking forward to Chatsworth. Those gardens all set alongside the River Derwent will look so beautiful. What a setting. Just can’t find anywhere to stay on Tuesday night. Have left it a bit late. Might have to sleep in chatsworth camellia house at this rate! Will post photos and report back. Still sideways rain here, and I’m sitting typing in my coat! x
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It has clouded up here but I doubt it will rain but fingers crossed I’m wrong.
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Lovely again Karen . I love roses. My parents had a garden full of them as I was growing up. In those days all boughtbfrom Woolies! I did a blog a year ago which mentioned them. I remember the roses of my childhood. Peace. Which you have mentioned recently. Superstar. Iceberg.
I love your cut flower wreaths. And your potting shed.
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I can remember Woolworth’s plants. Very happy reminder. Would you believe it, I worked at Woolies when I was 16 as a Saturday girl and during school holidays- to fund studies. I sold clocks and watches until I was promoted to cakes and bread. A was a very enthusiastic sales girl and we were always sold out by lunchtime! My mum’s garden has always been a source of inspiration to me. It’s full of cottage garden flowers and roses. She’s such a kind woman, as she somehow finds time to come over and help me with my garden and always arrives with a car full of quiches, pies, crumbles and cakes. She’s a treasure. Thanks for taking the time to read and also for your very kind and lovely comments which always make me smile. Much love- karen x
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I have a “Fragrant Cloud” rose that I grew from a cutting. It’s on its own roots, so is a very weak plant, and grows in a big pot. But it does produce a dozen or so flowers every year, always on new wood. The colour is a rather insistent orangey-pink, but the fragrance is a dark red, true rose perfume. It is well-named. In contrast, I have an enormous climber, also grown from a cutting 20+ years ago, that hangs down from a tree, with masses of very double pink-tinged cream-to-white flowers, also quite fragrant, but possibly only because there are so many open at once.
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It’s good to find someone else who grows roses from cuttings. They are so easy to do. I’ve got a huge Rose Cerise Bouquet grown from a cutting 20 years ago that’s currently flowing from the top of a mature beech tree. Sadly no fragrance, but it never needs any maintenance or spraying. It just reliably flowers every year whatever the weather, and repeat blooms all summer long. I’ve also got a white shrub rose Pearl Drift which I grew from a cutting taken from the holiday cottage we had in Norfolk one year. A lovely reminder of happy times with the children when they were little. Thanks again, Audrey, for reading- and getting in touch, good luck with your garden. x
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The early June garden is fresh and lovely. And your roses are so pretty.
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Thank you Cynthia. I really appreciate you taking the time to read and get in touch. After such an unusual spring, I wasn’t sure the garden would be any good in June. Spring weather is certainly challenging now, and we are having to re-think our way of gardening to take into account late frosts, high winds, periods of drought- followed by floods. I am having to reassess what plants to grow in a changing, unpredictable climate. Thanks again for your kind comments.
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I love roses, but not the thorns! I have a couple that were here when I moved in and a ‘New Dawn’ that I put near the grape arbor. Some day I might actually get a fragrant David Austin, but I’d have to find the perfect spot for it first!
Your wreath is so lovely, I can just imagine its scent!
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I’ve got a New Dawn that’s climbed right to the top of a willow tree near the pond. It’s never pruned or sprayed and the flowers cascade down like a waterfall. So beautiful and no maintenance! yay! I find the David Austin roses have wonderful scent and repeat flowering, but need proper support as they are so leggy. I use hazel rods and willow circles woven round to prop them up. Shakespeare rose is a good deep rich red. Thanks for reading and getting in touch. All the best with your garden, Eliza. x
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Thanks, Karen.
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