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,

After failing once again to grow my own Soapwort plant from seed this year, it was time to source the plant from somewhere else. 

I've been very keen for a while now to grow Soapwort so I can harvest the plant material to turn it into my own natural gentle soap solution for cleaning, and also for washing fabrics around the house. Soapwort solutions are used by museums and art galleries to clean works of art and fabrics, and a Soapwort washing solution has even been used to clean the Bayeux tapestry in the past.

After searching the internet, I found that Kahikatea Farm had Soapwort seedlings for sale, as well as some other natural dye plants on my wish list. Not wanting to waste empty space in the courier box, I put in an order for other natural dye plants including Woad, Dyer's Chamomile, White Yarrow, and Meadowsweet.

When the box arrived, and the plants were removed from their packaging safe and sound, it was time to label them with waterproof labels, and plant them out in the natural dye garden.

My Soapwort plant has lots of stems growing, so hopefully I can harvest some this growing season.

I bought a replacement Woad plant after losing the one I had growing in the garden, when I transplanted it into the new natural dyeing bed in winter this year.

I also invested in a Dyer's Chamomile plant, and I'm excited to harvest the flowers and then dye with them, so I can produce warm yellow natural dye tones this growing season.

I bought a white Yarrow plant for natural dyeing after watching Jente's YouTube Channel "Mijn Wolden". Jente is a spinner, natural dyer, and knitter from Belgium, and she is one of my favorite crafting YouTubers. If you want to have a good time watching a friendly neighbourhood chaos goblin and her fiber shenanigans (in her words), you need to follow Jente. In a recent episode on her vlog, Jente natural dyed yarn with Yarrow to produce yellow and dark green tones (using an iron bath).

And finally I bought a Meadowsweet seedling for the garden. Meadowsweet is a perennial herb that prefers to grow in damp conditions, and it has frothy clusters of cream-white flowers and a sweet scent. It has a number of natural medicinal uses, as it contains aspirin like compounds, but I really just like the plant in general, and wanted to add it to my garden.

With all these seedlings now planted into the garden, I look forward to seeing them grow, and harvest plant material from them over the summer.

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, Crafting, Garden, Gardening, Herbs, Mijn Wolden, Natural Dye Plants, Natural Dyeing, Spring, Summer, Vlogging, YouTube, Youtuber

Hello friends,

An exciting opportunity happened a couple of months ago when the New Zealand Gardener magazine contacted me and wanted to chat about my blogging adventures in growing, harvesting, and processing my own sugar beet, as part of a wider article about kiwi gardeners growing their own sugar in various forms (including sugar cane and sugar maple).

I was quite happy to do this as I'm a big fan of the magazine (I buy a copy of it each month), and New Zealand Gardener is such a great source of local news and advice for New Zealand gardeners.

They used two of my blog posts as a guide for growing and harvesting sugar beets, as well as photos of mine for their article, along with a phone interview I did with them in early October 2025. If you want to read more about growing and processing sugar beet plants from these blog posts, here is where you can find them:

1. Making Sugar From Homegrown Sugar Beets

2. Harvesting My Own Sugar Beet Seeds

If you're on the hunt for sugar beet seeds so you can try growing your own sugar, sadly Kings Seed no longer stocks the seed, but I grew sugar beet plants from the last of my sugar beet seed stock, and waited two years until they had flowered and set seed, to harvest my own sugar beet seed earlier this year in autumn 2025.

I have some of those sugar beet seeds available for sale in my online store Hearth & Oak. There is a limited amount for sale, as I've sowed a lot of the seed in my own garden this spring. It would be good however, to have sugar beet seeds in the hands of more New Zealand gardeners, so we don't lose sugar beet seed stock in New Zealand.

As for me, I'm quite chuffed to be included in my favorite gardening magazine, and I never thought a couple of years ago when I started blogging about growing sugar beet in my backyard, that it would lead to this opportunity...

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, Blogging, Garden, Gardening, Harvest, Harvesting, Homegrown Food, Kings Seeds, New Zealand Gardener Magazine, Seed, Seed Saving, Seeds, Spring, Sugar, Sugar Beet