Our ROSES and what they mean to us

I am delighted to publish here contributions from fifteen of my Facebook and Twitter network friends from my Call-Out 26th May - Nottingham UK, Italy and USA.  I asked them for their favourite 1-2 roses from their gardens and the reasons why they selected them.  In addition, there are several I’ve popped in from my own Beeston-Nottingham garden. 
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It is a record and legacy of how important our Roses are during this period of time. To me, my garden determines what matters most in life and provides me with daily inspiration to focus, to action important tasks and complete them.  Roses and their perfumes always bring back memories of childhood, our loved ones, and of places visited.  And every picture tells a story...!  

Photo credit: Inna Schutts. From Marysia's Beeston-Nottingham Garden Collection.

Kate Foale, Tollerton, Nottingham.
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​My favourite rose is Biddulph Grange. Bought on our wedding anniversary at that very National Trust property several years ago. Married 44 years on 26 June!

Thank you Kate, and Congratulations to you both!

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Patricia Garlick, Beeston, Nottingham
Gorgeous! I love traditional, heavily scented roses! I have Rhapsody in Blue which smells amazing! 🌹 My Rhapsody in Blue rose was a birthday gift from my partner, so I simply had to bring it with me when I moved house the week before we went into lockdown!   It's a floribunda & was purchased from The Fragrant Rose Company.  https://www.thefragrantrosecompany.co.uk/

Oksana Holbrook, Sherwood, Nottingham  
Unfortunately I do not have any roses in my garden. I do remember my late grandfather who died in 1969 who loved them and had a garden full of them in every colour you could think of.
Thank you Oksana for your precious memory. 

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​Jeanie O'Shea - Jeanie Barton, Nottingham 

​This climbing rose is my Dad's. It's been there all my life and comes back strong every year - really cheers me, like it’s him looking down on me.

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Maeve Wright, Nottingham
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This is Iceberg, I'm not sure if it is actually a climbing rose, but it certainly loves to climb all over the obelisk it sits on, accompanied by a dark purple clematis that blooms later in the year. It's always prolific but is more so this year, my husband John didn't get round to pruning it, and when it produced buds he didn't want to cut them off.  So it's gone crazy, lots of flowers appearing at once, and lots more buds.  It's never been as full and lovely before, and would probably be the first plant you'd notice if you walked into our garden.  It has a wonderful scent too, it's like having a drink of fruit juice.  We've had it for about four years.  John bought it at Brookfields Garden Centre, Plains Road, Mapperley, Nottingham, and we love it.  https://www.brookfieldsgardencentre.co.uk/
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​We do have another fabulous rose, name unknown, a very voluptuous, many-folded pink one, but John did prune that, so it's growing back again, and no buds yet.
Here's another photo of my Iceberg rose. As you can see it's grown sideways both ways from the obelisk, I think it wants to take over the garden! (The photo angle doesn't do it justice, it has way more flowers than it looks as if it has).

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​Here is my Graham Thomas rose, very soft perfume.

​Yellow roses mean Welcome and Friendship!
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I received this photo from Fiona Greenslade, Nottingham.  

​Perfection, like a sugared rose atop a confectionery delight being presented to a Queen at a state banquet!   
Fiona says, “It was presented to me as a celebration for finishing my house!”   

I found out this rose is called Pink Celebration Hybrid Tea - it has a fruity flavour!

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My Augustine rose.  It’s very rambling and thorny so I have to regularly train it with green wire to the trellis (wearing thick gardeners gloves!).

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Cathy Hurt Henson, Tennessee, USA
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​This is my rose here in the USA, N/W part of Tennessee.  I love planting a well known variety of rose called Knockout. They are very hardy and do not require dusting or spraying...they are continual bloomers and if our weather stays warm they will bloom up into November.

​Christoper Frost, Nottingham  
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​I bought this rose bush in memory of my late mum Connie, who died some 20 years ago now. I think the bush’s flowering season is coming to an end, as this is about the last decent flower left.

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My Hanky Panky rose. 
​This rose has special memories for me of my mum, Sonia Zipser.  It was originally planted in her front garden and whenever I visited her, we would mention how's Hanky Panky today, go and check on it together and have a giggle and smile.  After she died in 2011, I removed the rose and re-planted it in my garden where it has amazingly grown and flourished ever since.  She's with me all the time I'm in my garden, either telling me what to tender first or winking at me sitting on her bench, now painted cornflower blue in my garden,
while sipping tea from her china mug. 

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Tracey Dineen of No 31 Belper, Derbyshire, https://www.homeaway.co.uk/p8249391 - Twitter @No31belper 
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​Both David Austin Roses Gertrude Jekyll and Winchester Cathedral are my favourites because they look and smell divine.  And because my OH was born in Winchester.

Gertrude Jekyll (Ausbord) - English shrub rose bred by David Austin. Twice voted the Nation’s Favourite.   https://www.davidaustinroses.co.uk/

​“Always one of the first English Roses to start flowering, its perfect scrolled buds open to large, rosette-shaped flowers of bright glowing pink. The beautiful, perfectly balanced Old Rose scent is often described as being the quintessential Old Rose fragrance. A vigorous rose; it will form a medium-sized, upright shrub. Named for the famous garden designer and author. David Austin, 1986.”  

Patrizia Poggi, Relais Villa Roncuzzi hotel https://www.villaroncuzzi.it/en/  nr Ravenna, Italy.
In the Villa garden there is a flowerbed of damask roses, progenitors of current hybrids.  
In fact, when systemic botany was born in 1700, the five founding roses were described:
Rosa Gallica, Rosa Centifolia, Rosa Alba, Rosa Moscata and Rosa Damascena.
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​Damask rose, more commonly known as the Damask rose, or sometimes as the rose of Castile, is very robust, taller than Gallic, it emits, in bloom, a very intense perfume that distinguishes it from the others. It blooms once a year in April.

Maria Velardi, teacher, Bergamo, Italy
​Maria calls it The Rose of St Anthony Day, because it blooms around June 13. 

​Johnny Kim, Los Angeles, California

The Flower Fields, Carlsbad Ranch, California. Photo credit: Johnny Kim

"Basically every year they have this flower field event and people from all over the world visit it. They let the public choose the flowers and the workers will cut it for you for a small charge.  Love them flowers...  It is in the North part of San Diego, about 90 miles south of the Los Angeles Area."  The photo above by Johnny is taken of the Tecolote Giant Ranunculus field.  The famous fields also boast roses, orchids, sweet pea blossoms, petunias and poinsettias.

​https://www.theflowerfields.com/

The Flower Fields is a flower garden found on the Carlsbad Ranch in Carlsbad, California. It is open once a year in spring from March 1 through May 10. The fields experience attendance of anywhere between 100,000 and 200,000 visitors every year from all over the world. The fields were given positive press from outlets such as CBS News Los Angeles, NBC News 4 Southern California, and The Huffington Post Travel, which praised the quality of the flora and recommended that people visit the area to check it out.  

Roberto Alborghetti, Bergamo, Italy

​​This is from my garden, I think next week another will pop out. It was given to us by friends. They said it is a wonderful kind of rose, but I don’t know the name.  So we are curious to see more.  

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Update 28.6.20 - Here are 3 more contributions received since 17.6.20

From Steve H from Nottingham.  

These Roses were given to my mum by the Gregory family when I was born 54 years ago.

​It's taken a while for them to come into bloom as I had pruned them hard due to the condition and age of them.  So they were 54 years in the making! 

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From Theresa Moynes in Dublin.

My favourite Rose has to be the Dublin Bay Rose  as a cutting was given to my son and daughter in law, Keith and Denise, on the birth of their baby girl Eloise and it is now thriving in their garden. 

​Another cutting was given to my other son, Graham and his girlfriend Caoimhe, on the purchase of their first home together and is also thriving in their new garden. Beneath is a picture of said rose (credit of Farmleigh Estate) which is where the cuttings came from so that makes them special also.  ​

From Anna Abatecola, teacher at Frosinone (Lazio), Italy.


Her rose is called Mister Lincoln.  It has a wonderful perfume and is like velvet to touch.

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Thank you so much Steve, Theresa and Anna, I can smell their perfume from here!  

To conclude, I found three links which are fascinating to read...have a look! 

June 24, 2018
https://www.countrylife.co.uk/gardens/gardening-tips/ultimate-guide-growing-roses-plant-plant-whether-really-need-prune-179765
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June 4, 2020
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/roses/rose-facts

Updated September 24, 2020 
https://happydiyhome.com/benefits-of-gardening/  

My grateful thanks extend to Inna Schutts, ACT Photographer, Beeston-Nottingham.  Published here is a small collection of her photographs taken recently in my garden - main heading photo and after my writing.   

My enduring thanks also to my garden plant suppliers since 2012 -
David Austin Roses (Wolverhampton) https://www.davidaustinroses.co.uk/; 
Ashridge Nurseries (Somerset)  https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/;  
Fred Hallam Ltd, Beeston, Nottinghamshire  https://fredhallam.shop/; and 
Lavender World (Yorkshire)  https://www.yorkshirelavender.com/.  

My sincere gratitude to my social network contributor friends in Nottingham UK, Italy and the USA.  I’ve really enjoyed the experience of gathering all your rose photographs with stories, and I hope all of my blog readers here have enjoyed this blog collection too.  I would welcome any comments below you may wish to add to “Our ROSES and what they mean to us”.  

My rosa 'Blue For You'. Supplied by Fred Hallam Ltd, Beeston-Nottingham in 2012. Photo credit: Marysia Zipser

Thank you for reading!

Marysia Zipser
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All photographs below are from a collection by Inna Schutts of Beeston.