MY ROSES - "Ha to He"

HARRY EDLAND: Floribunda. Bred by Harkness.1975 in the United Kingdom. One of the nicest blue/mauves in this colour range. Quite clear and more blue than most of the ones I have seen. The fragrance is one of the strongest and it’s moderately full medium size blooms are formed in small clusters on short stems. The downside is that it inherits the poor overall health that roses of this colouring seem to have. That is my experience with this particular rose and I have nurtured it for years, though it has improved slightly over the last couple. The performance is barely acceptable, but I will stick with it for a while longer. It is beautiful in floral arrangements. Looks more blue in cooler evening shade.

HEIRLOOM: Hybrid Tea. Bred by Warriner. 1972 in the United States. Mauve in the hotter summer months and at the cooler ends of the cycle it takes on a more blue hue, especially in the evening shade. This is a beautiful rose with attractive large full blooms born singularly or in clusters on long stems. As with most mauve/lavender roses, the fragrance is strong and wonderful. I particularly love this colour in rose arrangements. I find my blooms are fuller than described on HMF. http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/roses.php

HERITAGE: English Rose. Bred by David Ausin. 1984 in the United Kingdom. Demure light pink. Beautifully cupped with lovely blooms born on long stems, usually in clusters. Strongly fragrant and an extremely healthy large bush which is very floriforous and constantly in bloom. Also beautiful when used as a climber on a fence. When free standing, it gets very tall, but the canes are strong and upright, so it does make an attractive shrub in the garden.

I love the combination in this picture, taken of our friends' beautiful daughter on her wedding

day. I made her bouquet with cream florist roses which were complimented by the soft pink of "Heritage" blooms. The back drop of our our Paul's Himalayn Musk helped to set the scene.

THE NAKED PHOTOGRAPHER

The things we do to get a good shot ................and the story begins! On the day of the event, I had just got out of the bath tub and Alan shouts Are you decent? I yelled, No! But he said, you should come here and see the California quails, there are hundreds of them! I quickly tied the towel around me, grabbed my camera and clickity split saw Mr. and Mrs. Quail, (Dale and Gayle) and another male (Mayle) and what looked like big bugs scooting all over the place. Oh, how cute!! My camera is set to perform and the towel bolts to the ground, but I, creeping along between soil, gravel and shrubs, could not give a care about being starkers - I had to make the shots! My husband was gob smacked! I fail to see why! Hope you are truly thankful that no one was around to take a picture of the photographer taking a picture of Mayle, Gayle and Dale Quail and their four and twenty day-old chicks. So here are some of the photos - hope you enjoy them! Unfortunately there is always sadness in nature. We kind of wondered why there were two males and so many chicks. (I counted 24 and they usually have about 12 in our area) There was actually two coveys of them. The mum would kind of sit on one group and spread out her wings drawing them all together, then go to the next group and do the same thing and they would all be neatly packed up in a tight circle (two tight circles). It dorned on us later that these were actually two sets of hatches and unfortunately one of the mum's must have come to a bad end. We had heard a lot of noise and commotion earlier that day but we could not figure what it was. Anyway, between the three adults, they seemed to be managing remarkably well.......but I do get very upset with nature at times!

THE HAPPY PHOTOGRAPHER (sequal to the naked photographer)

..............and just to prove that I do dress appropriately some times, my uncle took these two pictures of me in the pouring rain, when he was last with us from England. This goes to show there is no stopping a determined and happy photographer, when the prospect arises of some good shots.

Brolly won't seem to open quick enough,

got to keep the camera dry

This time, in pouring rain, my aim was to take some of the water fowl which graced this beautiful pond at one of our favourite eating spots, the Crow and Gate, which is an authentic old English style pub.

The residence of the pub owners

It is in a unique spot with lovely gardens and a great pond with an island (at least twice as big as ours), but this is sort of how I would like ours to look. This one is quite exposed, whereas ours is mostly in the shade.

My aim in the rain

One of a pair of beautiful black swans

A very attractive male teal

Thanks for looking.

Pauline :)

MY ROSES - "Ju to L D B"

JUBILEE CELEBRATION: English Rose - bred by David Austin in UK, 2002. Unusual colour of pink/salmon blend. Delightful, very full heavy blooms, and very fragrant. Lovely old rose look to these blooms. Born in small clusters on short stems. Certainly a keeper, I have two. Very vigorous shrub, forming many blooms throughout the season. JUST JOEY: Hybrid Tea - Bred by Cants of Colchester UK in 1972. Unusually beautiful succulent, peach shade. Huge blooms, one of mine measured 7" accross, last season. Large loose attractive petals. Nice fragrance, moderate, to my nose. Average flushes as far as HT blooms go. But definitely a remarkable rose.

L D BRAITHWAITE: English Rose. Bred by David Austin in the UK in 1988. Rich red colouring. Starts off cup shaped, but when fully open resembles a peony. This is one of my favourite Austins. Points lost for lack of fragrance, but a beautiful looking rose.

Kitchen Reno - Such fun - Oh but a lot of work!

I try to break up my rose pictures with something a little different. I think most people like looking at remodeling or make-overs. Our kitchen was becoming quite stale after having the same cupboards and appliances for 25 yrs. Looking at "the before", I guess it did not look too bad, but the cupboards were getting quite worn and did not clean easily anymore. Ideally it would have been best to rip them all out and start all over. Some of the modern cabinets these days are amazing, but terribly expensive. It would have been a huge job to re-finish the cabinets, so decided to go for a new bright look and paint them white. Our kitchen is quite dark because we are surrounded by a forest of tall dense evergreens, so at times it can look a little depressing. So, white it was going to be. We still loved our "blue" accessories, so I wanted to create a theme around blue and white. (click on pics for larger image)

Kitchen - during our B&B days Big decisions on what to use as an accent colour. I loved this little creamy yellow ceramic container with the blue pansys and blue rimming it's lid, so I decided that that would be my colour scheme. Then I started collecting paint colour samples and went looking for fabric. I was delighted to find this beautiful French toile Waverly pattern which seemed to go nicely with the colours I had picked.

We hired a painter who turned our kitchen into a bubble of plastic and applied three coats of spray paint over a matter of several days. What I liked about this method, was that I would also get all the insides painted too! He did an excellent job as "oak" is not the easiest wood to cover.

So let's get started....... OMG!

Now we jump to the next picture but Before we got this far, my husband Alan had worked his buns off literally. I marvel at the hours he put in to it from the installing the new stainless steel appliances, to fitting the new light fixtures. He did an amazing job on the crown molding, installed five new doors and also a new window which all had to be painted too. He will probably tell me I have missed something out, heehee!. But the actual painting and decorating turned out beautifully also. The ceiling was painted a pale cool blue and so was the inside of a the cupboard we keep our every-day dishes. We also had the doors ripped down to this cabinet in order to have them glazed which made a nice accent. We lived with it at this stage for several weeks as the Anaglypta wallpaper Alan was installing was on back order from England - I could hardly wait to introduce the yellow colour. For people who do not know, Anaglypta is a hard embossed wallpaper which you can get in many different patterns including stripes. I chose a traditional pattern. One usually paints over this wallpaper to a colour you wish, even white works beautifully. What is nice is that when painted the seams fill in and it gives a really nice affect. Then when you tire of it, you can re-paint it a different colour!

This is one of the few pictures where, which I believe, you can see some of the texture in the wallpaper. (hopefully when enlarged)

It is coming together

The accent dishes you see on the hood, were an amazing find, almost matching the toile fabric I have as window treatment and chair pads, exactly. These really were the icing on the cake and I have several pieces around the kitchen areas. Nice to look at the snowscape from the cosiness of our new mellow and brighter kitchen!

MY ROSES - "L'A to Ma"

L’AIMONT: Floribunda – Bred by Harkness (1994) in UK. Medium peachy/pink blooms born in clusters on med length stems. Blooms are very full and ruffled and are quite beautiful with a delightful strong fragrance. L’Aimont, also goes by the name of Victoria Spice looks lovely and is a good performer in a vase. As I find with most Harkness roses, the foliage is good with glossy leaves.

LOVING MEMORY: Hybrid Tea –Bred by Kordes (1981) in Germany. One of the most beautiful roses I have encountered. Blooms are velvet red, packed with petals and are mostly born on long stems. Pleasant, “almost” moderate, fragrance. I will always cherish this plant which was given to me by the sister of a close friend who died in a motor vehicle accident and it portrays a very “Loving Memory”!

MARGARET MERRILL: Floribunda – Bred by Harkness (1977) in UK. Medium size semi double blooms born in clusters on a longish stem. Intensely fragrant Blooms are white. On this rose, I prefer newly unfurling buds and brand new blooms before they are fully blown, also the colour shade is more beautiful at these stages. Though, many people do like it at its fully open bloom stage when it shows off it’s bright peachy/yellow stamens.

MARY ROSE: English Rose - Bred by David Austin (1983) in UK. Medium size full petalled blooms born in large clusters on short stems. Vigorous and floriferous. Pleasant mild to moderate fragrance. Lovely shade of pink.