Hello friends,

And welcome to the last blog post of the year. Today I thought I'd share with you the new rose bush varieties flowering in the garden at the moment, that I've been waiting impatiently to flower ever since I planted them last winter (and even early this month in one case...).

First up we have my new 'Cuppa Tea' floribunda rose bred in New Zealand by Bob Matthews, from his popular for picking rose 'Cappuccino'.

I'm so pleased to have purchased this new rose variety this past winter, the muted pink/purple/bronze shading is just so stunning, and is unlike any other rose colour I've ever seen. I can't wait for her to be covered in flowers all throughout the summer.

Next up we have my new climbing rose Azubis. This is the second Azubis rose bush that I have bought this year, the original one was wind blasted during the big North Westerly storm we had in October, and then it slowly died over the weeks afterward, no matter how hard I tried to save it. Luckily, the garden center I purchased it from had one Azubis bush remaining in late October, so I picked it up and planted it straight away into a more sheltered part of the garden. Azubis is a beautiful climber, producing large lilac blue blooms with a huge fragrance.

My Azubis rose bush may be very small at the moment, but she has already flowered once, and her single lilac bloom is huge and smells like heaven. I can't wait for her to grow up and cover our back garden fence in years to come.

And finally we have my newest rose, Chawton Cottage, another climbing rose, bred in England by Harkness Roses, and named for Jane Austen’s House which is now a museum. Chawton Cottage has sensational pearl pink blooms with a distinctive raspberry purple eye. These unique flower clusters are delicately fragrant and fantastic for picking.

I was walking through our local Mitre 10 when Chawton Cottage caught my eye. She was flowering with multiple blooms in early December. Her unusual single flowers with a pearl pink outer flower and a deep raspberry inner, was just stunning, and bees swarmed around her. Before you could blink an eye, I had Chawton Cottage in my arms, and handed over my debit card to the cashier.

I bought her home and wandered around the garden with her until I found the perfect spot for her, up against our trellis fence at the end of the driveway.

I had to do some pruning to get her to fit up against the trellis, and over the coming years I will trail her along and up the fence line to produce a wall of flowers at the end of the driveway.

She just looks so pretty in pearl pink and green and raspberry up against the trellis, adding a lot of joy to a space that has been difficult to garden in over the years.

I hope you enjoyed a look at my new flowering rose varieties from this year. And I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year period, and I'll see you again soon in January 2026...

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky, and now also Facebook.

Tags: 2025, Chawton Cottage, Cuppa Tea, Flower Garden, Flowering, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Rose, Roses, Summer, Uzubis

Hello friends,

Today I wanted to share with you some of the ranunculus and peony plants that flowered in the garden this November, bringing such wonderful colour into the garden after the daffodil and tulip flowers finished, but before the dahlias started flowering this summer.

First up are the ranunculus varieties that I grew from seed last autumn. I bought a bunch of imported seeds from Buds & Bloom, including the varieties French Amandine Purple Jean, Italian Rosa Chairo, Italian Rosa, Italian Pastello 1, Italian Pastello 2, and Italian Bianco Sfumato. 

Ranunculus corms are almost impossible to import into New Zealand due to strict biosecurity laws, but seed stocks are much easier to get into the country, which is what Buds & Bloom did last summer this year. Ranunculus plants from seeds are pretty tricky to grow, but I managed to get some germinating in autumn, and then grew them up over the winter, before planting them into the ground very early this spring. It didn't take them very long to grow and begin flowering, and here are a few that I photographed.

The range of colours from the imported ranunculus varieties was just stunning, with lots of pastel marshmallow like colours, and the flowers themselves were just very soft and squishy, perfect for cutting and then putting into a vase to enjoy inside the home.

Flowering at the same time were all my unknown peony varieties. Most of them were already in the garden when we moved here in 2019, and a couple of others are peonies that I bought but then have moved a couple of times over the years, and now I can't remember any of their names...

I leave them to flower in the garden rather than bringing them inside our home because hubby and my allergies are too severe to tolerate them, and also we have two very bitey indoor cats (Missy and Rosie) who would love to eat them if the blooms were brought inside.

I also have three new peonies growing this year, Duchesse de Nemours, Dr Alexander Fleming, and Sarah Bernhardt, but it will be a few years before they will be flowering and putting on a show in the garden. I can't wait to see them bud and bloom in a couple of years time...

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky, and now also Facebook.

Tags: 2025, Autumn, Flower Garden, Flowering, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Peony, Ranunculus, Seed, Seedlings, Seeds, Spring

Hello friends,

Today I thought I'd share with you some of the cosmos varieties I grew in our flower garden over the summer.

First up we have the Xsenia variety, which I grew from seed I got from Emerden last winter. This cosmos variety is just stunning and really unique, and I love the dark band of pink on the edges of the petals. The shade of pink in the petals do change as the flowers get older, so by picking them at different times, you will get a range of colours from just one variety.

Next up we have the Apricotta cosmos variety, that I got from Kings Seeds. It has a similar apricot/pink colour to Xsenia, but the flower is much more open. It wasn't really my favorite, when compared to the Xsenia variety, so I won't be sowing any new seeds next spring.

Then we have the variety, Cosmos Cupcakes White, which I bought as seed from Susie Ripley Gardening. And wow, this cosmos variety really stands out in the garden. I love the cupped flowers, that really do look like the bottoms of cupcakes. These flowers blow daintily in the breeze, making a lot of movement in the garden on windy days. I'm definitely growing these again next year.

I also bought Cosmos Cupcakes Blush seeds from Susie Ripley. They're the same as Cosmos Cupcakes White, but they're a light pink in colour. They weren't as nice as the white variety, with the pink colouring not being even on the petals, so I don't think I'll buy them again.

And finally, we have my new favorite cosmos variety, Cosmos Fizzy White, which I also bought as seed from Susie Ripley Gardening. These white cosmos flowers come in all sorts of variations of fizzy white flowers, and they're just so beautiful in the garden. Of the ten or so plants around my garden, each flower type was slightly different, but each one was just stunning. I'm definitely going to grow a lot more of these in the garden next spring. And as a bonus they were complete bee and butterfly magnets all summer long.

I hope you've enjoyed taking a look at all the cosmos varieties I grew this last summer. I can't wait to begin growing them again next spring.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.

Tags: 2025, Autumn, Cosmos, Flowering, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Summer

Hello friends,

Today's dahlia profile is for the dahlias grown from Keith Hammett's Beeline II dahila seed mix.

From his website: "This series is different as it is based on 'Dark Destiny', a cultivar resulting from a cross between a dwarf hybrid garden dahlia and Dahlia sherffii, a species not previously used in Dahlia breeding...The colours are more restrained and much of their beauty lies in light being transmitted through the ray florets (petals) to give a stained glass window effect. Compact self supporting plants with finely divided foliage."

I sowed 6 seeds, and all of them grew big enough to plant out in the garden, and they all flowered.

Dahlia 1:

Dahlia 2:

Dahlia 3:

Dahlia 4:

Dahlia 5:

Dahlia 6:

As you may have noticed, Dahlia 6 really is the star out of all dahlias grown from Keith Hammett's Beeline II seed mix. The inner part of the ray florets are a deep tangerine which changes ombré style into dark pinks/purples. There is also streaks of dark pink coming out from the inside of the floret all the way to the outside. It definitely has a stained glass effect, and it really stands out in the garden.

Out of all the Beeline II dahlias I grew, only dahlia 6 stands out well enough for me to want to keep the tuber in the coming years. Dahlias 2, 3, 4, and 5 are all pretty plain looking, and don't interest me. Dahlia 1 is kind of tempting, but we'll see how it performs over the rest of the summer and autumn to gauge if it will be worth keeping it.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.

Tags: 2025, Dahlia, Dahlia Profile, Dahlias, Flower Garden, Flowering, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Keith Hammett, Summer