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Processing Damask Rose Flowers For Rose Water and Essential Oil
Hello friends,
And welcome to 2025 on my blog. I did a bunch of stuff over the Christmas break, so in the coming weeks you'll see what I got up to crafting and gardening wise during that time. One of the things I got up to in November and December, was to harvest, and then process my own damask rose flowers.
Damask roses hail from Syria, and their flowers have been used to make rose essential oil and rose water for thousands of years, for use in both perfumes and food. In New Zealand, damask rose plants are hard to come by, and it took me a few years to get hold of two rose bushes from small, specialty rose growers. The two varieties of damask rose bushes in my back garden are Duc De Cambridge and Isapahan.
Duc De Cambridge.
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Isapahan.
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Damask roses only flower once in spring, and their flowering happens over the course of a month. After some research, I found a scientific paper which said that the damask rose flowers could be stored at -20˚C for a month without losing any rose essential oil, in order to collect enough rose flowers to process them by steam distillation. From mid-November to mid-December, I went out into the back garden each morning, and collected flowers from my damask rose bushes, and them stored them in our chest freezer.
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When flowering finished in mid-December, I defrosted my damask rose flowers and placed them inside my Air Still pot still for distillation. After filling the still with enough water to cover the roses, I began distilling the rose essential oil and rose water.
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After about twenty minutes of heating, the strong scent of rose essential oil gases began filling the kitchen. A minute after that, the combined liquid of rose essential oil and rose water began exiting the pot still.
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The distilling process took about an hour, and I was left with 700 mL of combined rose essential oil and rose water afterward. The amount of rose essential oil was tiny compared to the rose water, so I decided to leave the two combined for storage. I split the resultant rose water into two 350 mL containers, and gave one to my sister, who likes to make natural products for her home.
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I'm really pleased with the resulting rose water, which smells lovely, and in the coming years as my rose bushes grow, I'll get bigger harvests of rose flowers each year. My plan with the rose water this year is to use it in my cold-processed soap recipe later on this summer.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.
Signs of Spring 2024
Hello friends,
Spring is just around the corner, and my garden is showing many signs of spring. I'd thought I'd share with you some photos I've taken recently.
My miniature Irises have already put on a show with their beautiful, dainty flowers.
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Crocuses have also been flowering.
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As are a lot of my daffodil varieties.
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And finally, my deciduous shrubs and trees have started breaking their buds, and there's also blossom appearing on our fruit trees.
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Spring is less than a week away, and I'm so excited for warmer and longer days. There's lots to do in the garden now, so it's time to get on with all the things, especially seed sowing.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky
Flower Seed Buying And My Seed Database
Hello friends,
It's that time of the year again in New Zealand, when seed companies send you tempting emails showing you the new flower seeds they have available for sale. This year two of my favorite specialist flower seed companies sent me emails in late May, so I had no choice but to peruse their wares.
The first temptation was from Susie Ripley Gardening, where I purchased Cosmos and Larkspur varieties.
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I have a soft spot for cosmos, and really fell in love with the cupcake and fizzy varieties. I can't wait to see them floating in the breeze this coming summer.
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I also love how Larkspur brings some height to garden borders, so I got some purple and white varieties of that also.
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Next up was Crawford Road Gardens, where I picked up a number of seeds including aster, celosia, stock, larkspur, foxglove, scabiosa, lavender, and strawflower. My plan is to increase my garden borders in the back yard, so I picked colours that matched the seeds I bought from Susie Ripley Gardening.
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Once I had the seeds in my hot little hands, it was time to enter them into my seed database. I have a seed database set up on Libre Office, one sheet each for flower, herb, vegetable, and native seeds.
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The columns are set up for seed type, supplier, sow by date, whether a seed needs to be stratified, if they've been sowed in the current year, and then which months of the year they can be sowed in.
In the rows, I have sections for each flower type e.g. Allium, Cosmos, and underneath the varieties are in alphabetical order. If the variety is greyed out, it means that I don't have that seed in stock right now. If the row is highlighted in the 2024 column, it means the seed has been sown. Cells marked in green show which months the seed can be sown in.
I really love this set up as it means that I can quickly see which seeds I need to sow, if they are still within their use by date, and if I need to reorder any seeds. I recently updated the seed database for spring 2024, so I can now see which varieties I may need to buy when the Kings Seed catalogue comes out this month. I may decide not to repurchase some seed varieties, but at least I will know which ones I've had in the past.
I have separate sheets set up for all my seed types, and it really makes seed sowing that much easier. It means that I can come up with a plan each month for seed sowing, and it also means I can purchase seed sowing mix ahead of when I need it.
It's so exciting to know that spring will soon be here, I'm already loving the return of daylight earlier and later each day. I can't wait until August when it's time to sow tomatoes and chillies.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.
Harvesting Calendula, Lavender, Chamomile, and Catnip
Hello friends,
It's a very busy time in the garden with lots of harvesting to do, and last week I finally got around to harvesting chamomile, lavender, calendula, and catnip.
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It was a bit of a battle to work around the many honey bees, bumble bees, and native bees who were all doing some harvesting of their own, but I finally got the flowers harvested.
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The calendula and chamomile went straight into the dehydrator, but I had to chop the lavender stems back to make the lavender flowers fit inside. My dehydrator now lives in the garage, as the scented air flow sets off my asthma.
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Once that was done, it was time to harvest the catnip. I grow our catnip in the berry cage, as it's the only way of getting a harvest for our indoor cats, Missy and Rosie, without the neighbourhood cats destroying it first. The catnip plants however had grown like weeds, and were far too large to fit inside the dehydrator.
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After giving the branches a trim, luckily there was enough space inside the glasshouse walkway to fit them all in, so I laid the catnip out flat to dry. I put an old mesh door over the glasshouse during the day to stop the birds eating my tomatoes, but it also handily fends off the neighbourhood cats too.
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Now that all the plants are dry, they go into storage for later on in the year. I plan to use the chamomile, calendula, and lavender in soap making once I have the time and space to do it. And the catnip will go into the cat's stash of catnip I keep all year for them.
Do you spoil your fur babies with their very own catnip? I find homegrown catnap is much more potent than store bought.
Have a wonderful day.
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.
The Winter Citrus Gardening Project is Finished
Hello friends,
My winter citrus gardening project is finally completed. A couple of weeks ago, I dragged the citrus trees out of the glasshouse, and gave them each a trip on the wheel barrow out onto the patio. The next task was digging three very big wholes into the ground to make space for the citrus trees.
The first tree to go in was the lime tree. It only took a couple of bangs on the outside of the pot, and it loosened up enough for hubby and I together to lift the heavy plant into place.
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Then it was just a task of filling in the hole, sprinkling both citrus fertilizer and water retention crystals onto the soil, and then watering the lime tree in.
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Next up on the list was to do the same to the lemon tree, which is now sitting quite happily underneath the kitchen window in the herb garden.
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And last of all was the mandarin tree, which is now sitting in front of the newly painted white fence in the front garden. If you've noticed the three green pegs in the ground, they're soil water monitoring sensors, which I can keep an eye on to see how much water each plant is getting. The pegs are connected to our weather station system, and I can check them online whenever I want.
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I've repurposed the now empty large pots, and they're now housing three of our tomato plants, a yellow Honey Bee plant, a Pomodoro plant, and a Juane Flamme plant.
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And last of all the planter box has been painted a pretty shade of sage green, and it is now full of annual herb plants.
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I'm really happy with how this garden project has turned out. Now all I need to do is paint our patio garden furniture sage green, and then the whole area is spruced up. Over the summer I need to come up with a plan to protect the citrus from frosts and snow over winter, but for now I can just enjoy the fruits of my labour.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.