The scent of June
“There was something rather blousy about roses in full bloom, something shallow and raucous, like women with untidy hair” - Daphne Du Maurier
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| Rose Felicia |
Welcome to our garden in June, it always my favourite month in the garden when there is an abundance of flowers and the air is full with the scent of perfume especially from the many roses. The quote by Daphne du Maurier appeals to me too especially as my hair is often unruly, although I have never previously associated it with a rose!
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| Rose Fruhlings Gold |
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| Louise Odier rose |
It has also been a wet start to the month, but the rain drops do look beautiful!
Even a spider was enjoying the Nevada rose -we have many geraniums that are planted at the base of the roses, see posts from previous years here and here. The scent in our garden at this time of year is also provided by Philadelphus (mock orange) - we have two varieties the gold leaf Philadelphus Coronarius Aureus, which flowers slightly earlier and is now just starting to go over.....
and the more common variety Belle Etoile, which seems to have come into flower earlier than usual.
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It is also good to bring in perfume into the house too.....
This weekend we have been out on our annual outing picking elderflowers to make cordial - the only problem is what to make with them! The recipes over at The Quince tree are so wonderful, ice-cream, ice lollies and elderflower drizzle cake - I just want to make them all ! Our daughter is returning home at the end of the week after 3 years at University, so I will have to try and produce some of these delights to welcome her home! How is your garden growing? Do you have any scent in your garden at the moment?
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| Picking elderflowers with glimpses of the sea! |
While we wait a day for the elderflower cordial to be ready,we also had the first gooseberries from the garden, which I baked slowly in the oven and the elderflower blossom gave a wonderful subtle smell and taste.
Thank you for all your lovely comments they do always brighten my day!
Sarah x
Glorious Sarah. I can just imagine the wonderful scent of your Philadelphus as we have it here. I'm still waiting for Belle Etoile, loaded with buds but all tightly closed!
ReplyDeleteSarah what camera do you use for these lovely pictures?
ReplyDeleteIt is a Pansonic Lumix with 16X zoom . Sarah x
DeleteWe have Belle Etoile and Aureus too and they are both blooming now. A wonderful scent.
DeleteYour garden flowers look beautiful and I can imagine how good it all smells on a summer evening.
Here, the wild honeysuckle is beginning to flower in the boundary hedges. What a heady perfume it has!
What a lovely collection of photos, and a lovely garden too :)
ReplyDeleteGosh Sarah - so much in bloom. I bet they smell divine.
ReplyDeleteNina x
Your roses are all so beautiful Sarah! I could almost smell the fragrance from here! xx
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteYour roses and flowers are just beautiful, as are your photos... You are quite the photographer! I too, love my roses..
Thank you for sharing.
The photo of Rose Felicia would make a lovely greetings card, I can almost smell it as I look. It will be a happy time welcoming back home your daughter. Good luck to her when she starts her new job.
ReplyDeleteHow I love coming here every time. Whether it's the sea, a pub, a walk with Daisy or your flowers, I leave so happy. I have no scents in my garden; mine is mostly boxwoods and white inpatiens, but I love the contrast of neon green and white! Give Daisy a hug for me?
ReplyDeleteDaisy thanks you for the hug! Sarah x
DeleteTwo things I really miss from England are elderflowers and gooseberries. My mother always made elderflower lemonade, elderflower wine and elderberry wine. Luckily I can now buy the cordial here to have with sparkling water. Gooseberries are so delicious when they are cooked, aren't they? I 'll have to hope they are still around when I come over later this summer. Your roses are beautiful too. Like you, I always have to sniff a rose in passing.
ReplyDeleteYour daughter will be vey happy coming home to all those goodies.
ReplyDeleteDear Sarah,
ReplyDeleteOh my, your garden is looking really beautiful and the roses so very pretty. Your photos are all so lovely and thanks for showing us. So many delicious ideas to do with the elderflower - yummy.
enjoy the time with your daughter coming home - has she finished at University?
Hugs
Carolyn
Yes she finishes University this week and starts a job on Monday and for the moment at least wants to live at home! It will be good to have her home again. Sarah x
DeleteSarah that is wonderful for you to have your daughter starting a new job on Monday and that she will be living at home. Best wishes for her in the new job.
DeleteCarolyn x
I love that photo of the gooseberries with elderflowers, the colors are perfect together. Rose scent is my favorite of all flower scents. I used to buy rose-scented powder, oil, cologne, anything I could find to wear.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait til my roses bloom! I'm only just up to the irises and peonies - but oh how I love those flowers too!
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your lovely flowers!
Good morning, Sarah! Wonderful roses you have in the garden. Had ore have you also so high temperatures in Britain? I only leave the house to water the potplants, than I'm indoor.
ReplyDeleteSigrun
It's more wet than warm only reached about 22C so far. Sarah x
DeleteI'm thinking of the phrase "...coming up smelling of roses" now. Roses seem so archetypically English, don't they? I have visions of country cottage gardens full of roses, hollyhocks, stocks and Sweet Williams. Love the photo of raindrops on the Alchemilla!
ReplyDeleteI have garden envy. I just can't seem to get to grips with ours this year at all. My lack of enthusiasm hasn't affected the roses though and they're in full and delicious bloom. Better than ever! I suspect it may be the wet Spring. I do enjoy sitting out in the garden especially during warm afternoons with some quilting to finish. Our buttercups are in full bloom!
ReplyDeleteYour roses are so very pretty, I can't wait to see what you end up making.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure your garden is warmer than ours as we don't have so many blooms as you yet - but there is time. I'm looking for a rose that likes a south facing fence so any tips?
ReplyDeleteOur rose felicia faces South and thrives. David Austin or Peter Beales have good web sites and we have always found Stewart Nurseries in your area to have a good selection of plants. Sarah x
ReplyDeleteSuch a lovely garden, you roses are flowering wonderful , but I also love the gooseberry picture with the elderflowers.
ReplyDeleteI will be your new follower.
Have a nice week at the sea and in your lovely garden.
It's nearly rose time at Mottisfont for me- can't wait. Yours look so beautiful. There is a philadelphus that spills out onto the road where I go running- it has the most wonderful scent. x
ReplyDeleteNo elder flowers here yet but I love the idea of a drizzle cake and will be popping over to have a look at that. Your roses are spectacular. I was given a rambler for my 50th and I'm terrified I'm going to kill it! xx
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the quote about untidy hair being like roses. Like you, I have unruly hair, and comparing it to roses is a much nicer thought than what I usually compare mine to. :-)
ReplyDeleteYour roses are gorgeous. Their smell combined with the scent from the mock orange must make your garden a very nice place to spend some time. Have fun deciding what to do with the elderberry flowers!
Your roses are divine and all images from the garden reveal the beauty of the season. Enjoy the family gathering!
ReplyDeleteOlympia
My roses are just starting to perform - a lovely time of year in the garden. I have sweet Williams flowering now but the Philadelphus is still in bud - lovely photos of your roses - I haven't had time to pick any elderflowers yet but I have plenty of gooseberries I like to leave them till they are big and soft and eat them raw.
ReplyDeleteRoses, Elderflower, Gooseberries...what more would you think of when you think of an English summer's day...glorious! Viv x
ReplyDeleteI love those blousy pink roses, they remind me of my Grandad who had many rose beds. The big pink ones he had bloomed for ages and had the most delicious scent.
ReplyDeleteI've never made elderflower cordial although we have some growing in the garden (elderflowers not cordial!), I love the idea of cooking the gooseberries with a few flower heads, I might try that.
Have a great week Sarah. x
I always stop to sniff the roses too ! Have fun finding elderflower recipes !
ReplyDeleteDear Sarah,
ReplyDeleteHere at last..
It's always a real pleasure to visit and it really feels today like a quote I write on my black board in the shop many times..
" Take time to smell the roses along life's way".......
June has been a mixture of all weathers here at home...but nature always puts on her best show! There is nothing quite like the scent of a rose from the garden, brings back lots of memories for me..
Thank you for kind words over on mine...I am losing my self on IG these days, only because my words are too few for a blog post....You do lose the intimacy of the blog world though..
Olivia has her place at Leeds college of art and we are pleased! ( not to far away)
From September four will be just two...
All those busy years ....
Sarah I am wishing you a lovely rest of week, with lots of days to smell those roses...
Hugs and kisses ...
Maria x
I wish I had seen that quote! So pleased to hear Olivia has a place at Leeds and will be close at hand! Sarah x
DeleteYour Roses are beautiful Sarah. This Elderflower business is new to me but I intend on giving it a go when Summer comes to Tasmania....Have a lovely week! Mel x
ReplyDeleteOh, what lovely roses! In our Victorian garden in Birmingham we had many lovely old roses - Madame Hardy, Mme Isaac Periere, the striped Gallica Mundi. They got very messy and only flowered once, but worth it. They don't do so well down here by the sea....
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful garden. Your roses look lovely. I picked a load of elderflowers today and added them to some bottles of gin. Hope it turns out well, they smell so heavenly!
ReplyDeleteYour gin elderflower sounds such a good idea! Sarah x
DeleteYour post is chock full of wonderful fragrances and tastes! Elderflowers and gooseberries aren't well known over here in Southern California but I was blessed to taste some while visiting England in 2009. I do believe I am going to try to find some Elderflower cordial; you have awoken my appetite for that delicate flavor. Enjoy your delights. I am enjoying your photos and dreaming of green English landscapes and the sea.
ReplyDeletePost Script to my previous comment - while searching online I was surprised by this post from a year ago that claims elderflowers grow wild here in Southern California! And this blogger was making cordial. Who knew! (Not I, obviously!)
ReplyDeleteI share the link: http://tartinestotikis.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/hand-picked-in-southern-california/
I hope you can find some bushes and enjoy the taste in Southern California.Sarah x
Deletelovely photos Raindrops do add to the pictures
ReplyDeleteHey Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI planted four rose bushes, and they are flowering now. They were all David Austin scented varieties, and not one of them smells!!
Leanne xx
These are such beautiful photos Sarah! I adore those gold roses, well I adore all of them actually! You have such an amazing garden.
ReplyDeleteSuch beautiful picts Sarah ... Love them all. Well you know I am a fan of your blog my friend. YOU always make us feel like we are there. xooxox HUGS happy SUMMER
ReplyDeleteGorgeous roses! Wonderful pictures! I can almost smell them ;)
ReplyDeletePhiladelphus... has been a very short story in our garden this year and it was flowering so abundantly though.... fr one day.... then came that enormous hail.... result: a snowcarpet of philadelphus petals on the grass, never seen anything like it.
Marian
Beautiful photos Sarah. I'm a newly converted rose grower - only in pots but I just love them and if I had a bigger garden would have more. I remember as a child my friend and I used to collect rose petals and soak them in water to make rose scented 'perfume' for our mums and to this day, the fragrance of a rose take me back to those days. x
ReplyDeleteAh yes - I planted a mock orange by our front gate years ago and I wait and wait each year for its big moment - I forced the postman to smell it the other day...
ReplyDeleteI could smell your rose all the way along the coast!
Best wishes
Jenny
Lovely! I particularly like the rain on the Alchemilla mollis, the spider and the great arrangement of shells and roses...
ReplyDeleteAt first sight I took your Philadelphus for Choisya ternata Sundance, but your Philadephus is so much more subtle!
All the best :)
Dear Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI am so behind with my comments. I am trying to catch up.
Better late than never.
Your roses are simply divine.. they look so healthy. I wish we could have a drop of rain.. its so so hot here..i have to water the flowers more..but as I have a well, I have to be careful of not wasting too much water.
I do not know the names of the roses I have..
How lovely are these warm spring days..
a lovely post Sarah..
val xx
Why do you bake the gooseberries? Were they in a pie or tart? What do they taste like? Your roses are beautiful! The roses here often struggle with blackspot fungus because of our humid climate. Every year I have less of them as I struggle to keep them disease-free without using chemicals. Gorgeous view of the sea!
ReplyDeleteThey taste a bit like a sour grape so the sugar helps to sweeten them. In the picture I just roasted them and ate them with yoghurt . We usually have crumbles or pies with them which is delicious! Sarah x
ReplyDelete