Sweet peas and roses are plentiful on 28th June. Rosa It’s a Wonderful Life is the favourite this week with five or six rose heads on each spray. It’s almost a bouquet on its own!
Flowers are fully double with a delicious fruit salad scent. Leaves are very healthy with no sign of disease.
Perfect in bud. Flowers start a deep apricot colour and fade to pale pink.
It makes a striking feature in the garden, with all shades of peach and apricot at a time on one rose bush.
For background colour, I’ve chosen dark purple-leaved physocarpus Diabolo which in summer has clusters of pale pink flowers. These turn into deep purple seed heads.
Sweet peas are growing along a hazel A-frame in the veg plot. This year I’m growing a selection of white sweet peas alongside old favourite High Scent.
Mum sowed these oxeye daisies from a packet of wild flower seeds six years ago. We planted them together in one of the 1.3m by 3m divided veg beds in front of the greenhouse. They are the perfect partner for roses.
When they have finished flowering, I’m planning to move them to the new wildflower area surrounding the pond. They are taking over the veg patch , which I’m not complaining about. I love their joyful exuberance. Daisies are probably my top favourite flowers.
Also looking good at the moment are the home florists’ range of roses. This one is Timeless Cream. I’ve also got Timeless Purple. Highly recommended. Very few thorns and long lasting in a vase.
Timeless Cream in bud. Would make a perfect buttonhole rose.
And Rosa Mutabilis also blends in. This is the longest flowering rose in my garden, starting in April and still in flower in December.
Have a great gardening week everyone. I hope this has given you some inspiration on what to grow at home to create bouquets for friends and family all year round.
Also catch up with Cathy over on her #InAVaseOnMonday meme. It’s fascinating what everyone’s growing in gardens, all around the world.
Every week I run round the garden and cut a selection of flowers for my mum to show her what’s looking good at the moment. Here’s this week’s posy, with the starring role taken by roses at last. They are a week or two late producing flowers in my garden.
This rose is one of my favourites. It’s called ‘It’s a wonderful Life.’ It was Rose of the Year in 2022, bred by British rose grower Colin Dixon. Colin has won the title 10 times with new roses, so he must be able to spot a winner when he sees one!
I’ve added this lovely highly-scented rose, Timeless Cream, from Wharton’s nursery cut flower range. I also have Timeless Purple, which is highly recommended for scent and for long -lasting flowers in a vase.
I’ve added white sweet peas and oxeye daisies. I sowed the sweet peas in October and planted them out in April. Seed came from Mr Fothergill’s. Mum grew the oxeye daisies from a packet of mixed wild flower seed and we planted them together about 6 years ago. They are all around the pond area, and also in one of the 10 3x the1.2m beds in front of the greenhouse.
The sweet peas are particularly good this year, having had a cold spring c]which seemed to suit them. Compost for these came from Silvergrow, which is being sold at my local plant centre, Six Acre Nursery. I’m also still using a compost made in Leicestershire by Petersfield.
I hope these photos give you some inspiration to grow your own cut flowers. I use containers as well as a small area of the veg plot. Mostly I just forage around the plot for stems if shrubs and bits and pieces here and there. There’s never a huge amount of any species, but lots of little amounts all through the year.
I’m inspired by Georgie at Common Farm flowers who encourages us to join in her daily 30-stem challenge. I also like to join in with Cathy for In a Vase on Monday. She never minds if it’s on a different day. Have a look at her site and see all the flower arrangements being created each week by gardeners all around the world. It’s an awe-inspiring line up! Happy gardening everyone!
I wrote about roses and the Rose of the Year 2024 here:
Roses are among my favourite flowers in the garden, so I was delighted to be invited to the launch party for the Rose of the Year 2024.
And here it is! Meteor is a floribunda rose with golden yellow flowers, flushed red. This is a later than usual bloomer. I’m fact my sample rose is in bud at the moment (14th June) and looks like it won’t be in full flower for another two weeks. This is a good trait, as it spreads the flowering period in my garden.
The prize-wining rose was chosen as rose of the year because it:
Repeat flowers through the season
Has healthy foliage with excellent disease resistance
Has a bushy growth with erect habit and strong stems
It grows to 70cm high and 40cm wide
Lightly scented, fragrance like fruit salad on a summer morning
Meteor is suitable for pots or containers as well as planting in borders.
Plants will be available this autumn from rose nurseries and garden centres. Meteor was bred by Kordes Rosen, a member of the British Association of Rose Breeders.
Marilyn Stevens
Roses UK promotes the Rose of the Year, international rose breeders and British rose growers. Other activities have included theme design and management for the Festival of Roses Marquee at the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show and rose naming projects. Marilyn Stevens, Roses UK project manager, said: ‘Our mission is to celebrate roses! We’re keen to encourage gardeners to plant healthy varieties and to consider companion planting to complement their roses.’ The British Association of Rose Breeders funds Roses UK.
The launch party was held at Waterperry Gardens near Oxford on 13th June, a glorious location for such a prestigious event.
Here’s head gardener and gardens manager Pat Havers who gave us a tour of the gardens following the launch party. More on the gardens to follow in a separate blog post…..
Peach Melba, a fully double climber is Rose of the Year for 2023 and was launched at Iford Manor last summer.
This beauty is called It’s a Wonderful Life, and was Rose of the Year 2022. I used the flowers in this week’s posy for my Mum. The scent is reminiscent of water melon and summer fruit salad. It readily repeat- flowers, which makes it ideal for the cutting garden. This rose was bred by Colin Dixon who has won the rose of the year title 10 times.
If you were listening in to BBC Radio Leicester today, I was talking to presenter Ben Jackson about these roses. Do have a listen in on the i-player at about 3.05pm.
Congratulations to Ella Beard who has won two free tickets to this year’s GWLive show at the NEC. Many thanks to everyone to read the blog post and entered the prize draw by leaving a comment. It’s much appreciated. Enjoy your day out Ella, and report back! All the best, Karen
GWLive show 2022 Water features at last year’s show.
Gardeners’ World Live is one of my favourite shows with lots of practical ideas for improving my garden. I love this herb and water garden made out of old ceramic sinks. A simple and practical way to recycle. As in previous years, the organisers are offering a pair of free tickets for the show for readers of this blog. The tickets, for two adults, is for Sunday 18th June from 9am onwards. Please leave a comment at the end of this piece and a name will be randomly selected by the organisers. The prize doesn’t include the parking fee. Please see terms and conditions in the link.
More photos from last year’s show. Any container can become a water feature. This modern plastic pot contains grasses, reeds and a miniature water Lily.
Inspiring displays of plants alongside the plant sales area.
Spectacular topiary, bonsai trees and shrubs inside the marquee. There’s also a stage for talks with specialist speakers booked for the show.
Houseplants also feature in the display areas and are included in the talks.
More gardens from last year’s show. Plenty of paving and planting ideas.
Details of the tickets offered in the prize draw:
The winning tickets will be two adult tickets for Sunday 18 June, from 9am entry. Tickets are non-refundable, non-exchangeable and non-transferable, and do not include parking, travel, accommodation or expenses. Full ticket terms & conditions are available at: https://www.immediatelive.com/ticket-terms-and-conditions/
The winning name will be announced on Sunday 11th June on here.
Hope you are all having a happy gardening week. It’s terribly cold here in the Midlands with night time temperatures in single figures, down to 5C which is very chilly for June. Usually I open all the doors and windows in the greenhouse and leave them open for summer. But they are firmly closed for the time being. Tomatoes and peppers are worst affected. They have simply stopped growing. Hopefully, sunny and warm weather is on the way for the weekend. Fingers crossed.
Summer annuals, such as cosmos, haven’t started flowering yet. We are about two weeks behind, due to a very cold spring. So for this week’s flowers from the plot I’ve had to rely on biennials, perennials, climbers and shrubs. Each week, I pick a selection of flowers to take to my Mum as a ‘snap-shot’ of what the garden looks like. It’s a way of sharing our love of flowers and keeping her connected with what’s happening here.
Love-in-a-mist was sown last autumn and over-wintered in an unheated poly tunnel. I was testing out a theory to see if I could get early flowers by the last week of May. There are masses of flowers, but these are only a few weeks earlier than the ones growing in a sunny south-facing border outdoors, so I probably won’t repeat this exercise. The cost of compost and use of space doesn’t warrant the slightly earlier flowers.
The tiny deep purple flowers are Geranium Phaeum which pops up all over the plot in places I never planted it. It’s a long-flowering perennial and doesn’t take up much space, just meandering about through established shrubs and in a dry, shady woodland border.
The other jewel-like purple flowers are perennial wallflowers from Coton Manor plant nursery. These are highly recommended as they flower for a very long period and are low maintenance and easy-going. I bought just one plant and took cuttings immediately. I soon had 20 plants to cover a quarter of one of my vegetable and flower beds sited next to the greenhouse. I have 10 beds which are 1.5m wide by 3m long with small slab paths running between.
The last of the orange biennial wallflowers are being picked now. I’ll sow some more seed for next year. Sooty is a favourite deep purple/ black variety. The one above was part of a mixed packet of seed named Orange Bedder. It’s been flowering for several months. Deep red buds open to a lovely marmalade orange and the markings on the petals remind me of a dragonfly’s wings. The scent is wonderful, especially in the evening, and attracts clouds of moths. And circling above the plot, eating the moths, we have pipistrelle bats. We have seen them here since we moved in and created a garden 30 years ago. We thought they roosted over winter in the farmhouse next door, but they must have found other accommodation as the farmhouse has been completely renovated and there are now no gaps in the slate roof.
Forget me nots fill another whole bed, providing ground cover for the soil until the bed is required for summer crops. Forget me nots pull up very easily and suppress any weeds, so you are left with a nice clean bed to start planting out crops such as sweetcorn, onions, French beans, and courgettes. This year I have planted a dozen sunflowers in amongst the sweetcorn, an idea I spotted at Easton Walled Gardens last summer. Nasturtiums will clamber up the sweetcorn as it makes a sturdy support for annual climbers and scramblers.
Welsh poppies pop up in every crevice all over the garden. I did previously try to eradicate them, but they persisted and I’m quite pleased they did now. Such a cheerful plant with flowers that look as if they are made of silk. I have the yellow and the orange types here. Background foliage comes from the Physocarpus Diabolo which grows in a north facing border and provides material for flower arrangements all summer long.
Dead nettles and cow parsley add a touch of white to the posy. Dead nettles continue to grow out of the bouquet and flowers last a long time. I was intrigued to see four out of the 12 gardens at Chelsea Flower Show contained so called weeds. I laughed out loud when I heard pots of dandelions were selling for £30. I’m actually a millionaire if dandelions, nettles and buttercups are taken into consideration. My whole plot is full of them!
I have a new little helper in the garden! My grandson, Finn. He loves running between the cow parsley along the woodland paths and picking flowers for his great grandmother. I’m hoping he will have a life-long love of nature and flowers, just as we did, growing up running free in our grandparent’s gardens. Have a happy gardening week everyone.
Do join Cathy for her ‘In a Vase on Monday’ meme. If you are busy, like me, it doesn’t matter what day of the week you post your posy of flowers from the garden. It’s a good community to be a part of, sharing what we are growing in gardens all around the world.
Bramble Garden 