Greetings everyone and and a warm welcome to all my new subscribers this month. Here we are at the end of the first month of Winter and whilst it has felt
wintery at times, there have been no hard frosts, and so the roses bloom on. Above is a bed of Bewitched at the Mornington Botanical Rose Gardens. It is a rose bred in the US back in 1967 descibed as phlox pink with a rich Damask fragrance, and a good rose for a warm climate as it holds its colour in mid-summer heat. |
Other treats blooming in the Mornington garden were Safrano, a buff, apricot tea rose bred by Jean-Frédéric Sourdeau de
Beauregard in France in 1837. And a shell pink tea rose bred in France in 1857 which was introduced into Australia in 1874 under the name Comtesse de Labarthe. It is sometimes fondly or disrespectfully called 'Countess Bertha', and it also goes by the name of Duchesse de Brabant. "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" - an oft quoted quote from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Hermosa, which means beautiful in Spanish, is a bourbon/ hybrid China rose bred by Marchesseau in France in 1832, and it really does have small beautifully cupped, globular light pink blooms. In stark contrast is the huge medium yellow blooms of Côte d’Azure, a hybrid tea rose bred by G. Delbard (France, 2001), which has a strong, lemon, raspberry, rose fragrance. Lately I have been doing a lot of weeding in wet and muddy conditions, and I am always on the look out for long lasting gardening gloves. I recently tried out the Enviro Bee gloves from Garden Keepers and they have been a real surprise. The first thing I loved is the grip that you get from the natural latex rubber coating. Not only do you get a better grip on
the weeds making them easier to pull out, but you can also turn on a tap which has been turned off too tightly, and I have even used them to open stubborn lids on jars in the kitchen! When you get the gloves dirty you can
just rub your hands together under running water and then hang them out to dry in the shade. Whilst these gloves do not offer robust protection from thorns when rose pruning, for me they are the perfect weeding glove and for planting out seedlings and the like. The rose in the picture above is Angela, a rose-pink floribunda with a mild, fruity fragrance, which blooms in large clusters of cupped blooms throughout the season. It was bred by Kordes of Germany in 1975. Other treats in the Winter Garden Grey and misty days bring a greater appreciation of every pop of colour in the garden and salvias are one genus of plants that pull out all stops for a dramatic Winter display. One such salvia is Salvia ‘Romantic Rose’ (involucrata). A tall shrub growing 3-4 metres high with arching branches and brushes of watermelon pink flowers in winter. Below is a close up of the flower. Another flower which brightens Winter days is Iris Germanica or the Bearded Iris. The flowers have an unusual structure of three upright petals called 'standards' and three lower petals called 'falls', and there are tufts of fine hairs on the standards that look like caterpillars and this is the 'beard'. And irises are the inspiration for the artworks I am sharing this month. I hope you enjoy this selection of paintings of a flower which has been called 'a living work of art'! I can't think of Iris paintings without thinking of Vincent van Gogh, the paintings above and below were painted in the year leading up to his death during his stay at the asylum in Saint Remy de Provence. Is there a hidden meaning in the one white bloom amongst the blue? Monet had swathes of irises growing in his garden and were a favourite subject for him to paint. I took the photo below of the stunning stained glass work of Magnolias and Irises by Louis Comfort Tiffany at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York when I was there eight years ago to the day! And I like the simplicity of the painting below by Henry Matisse from 1919 entitled In The Nice Countryside, Garden of Irises. And finally, I was taken with this very dramatic depiction of irises, plus some yellow roses and a swallow in the foreground, in Louise Abbéma's stylish painting from 1927 entitled A Vase of Irises on the Terrace. Thank you for joining me for a little Winter wander. Until next
time, Love and roses,
Michelle
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My Latest Novel: Upsizing
A story of living large in later life, showing us that it's never too late to follow your dreams. The soft cover book is 214 pages long and costs $20 (Australian Dollars) per copy via the button below with free shipping worldwide. Also available from online book sellers.
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My First Novel: Rose Garden Reverie
A story of transformation set in a rose garden with rose care tips throughout the seasons. The soft cover book is 110 pages long and costs $20 (Australian Dollars) per copy via the button below with free shipping worldwide. Also available from online book sellers.
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May the beauty of nature inspire you everyday
Michelle Endersby Art
www.michelleendersbyart.com
phone: 0400 473 173
[email protected]
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