Yesterday, I showed youwhy you really need to go see the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. Today, let me suggest that you could also just stay home and smell the roses. That’s what I’m doing, here where it’s (finally!) 30 degrees (Celsius) and we’re padding around in bare feet with all the doors and windows open.
You could sniff the Fantin-Latour,
or perhaps the Belle de Crécy
Although you might prefer the Rosa Complicata
Here we have a just-unfolding Constance Spry
and more of the gloriously simple Complicata.
I went out and gathered a bouquet this morning — it included other roses I haven’t shown you yet: Graham Thomas, Autumn Sunset, Felicité & Perpetué, Darlow’s Enigma, Hansa, Awakening . . . I miss Paris, but I’m quite happy to be home in time to enjoy the peak of the roses!
You may not be in Paris, but you still have “la vie en Roses!” (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Those are so lovely. The older, simpler varieties have the best fragrance, don’t they?
Love the pun, Pseu. I’d thought of saying I was “in the pink,” which is perhaps a kind of anglicized version of the same.
And you’re so right about the older varieties and their fragrance. I don’t care how lovely a rose is, there’s no room in my garden for it if it can’t make my nose swoon.
Beautiful roses. I have had little luck with growing them myself, apart from the curious Rosa Mundi, which seemed to survive for years before throwing the towel in.
Your garden pictures are so very lush. You know I am not a gardener, but as of late I have had peonies and roses on the brain. So beautiful!!
Alison: Thanks and my sympathy that your roses didn’t hang in there for you. Mine are all older varieties which I chose partly for scent and partly because they’re easy care (like the Rosa Mundi, really). I admit to the dreaded Black Spot making a regular appearance but it doesn’t ever bother me enough to get to spraying and it doesn’t seem to slow down the blooms either.
LBR: Thanks — I love peonies and roses both. they seem so emblematic of the summer. And a consolation to me for having my travels over with while internet friends are taking off on theirs
😉