New Peonies and a Rose Bush
Hello friends,
Recently I purchased some wish list plants for my garden, three peonies, and a recently released rose bush.
When NZ Bulbs released their peonies for the 2025 - 2026 season, I bought Duchesse de Nemours, Dr Alexander Fleming, and Sarah Bernhardt.
Duchesse de Nemours has ivory white double flowers and the sensational scent of Lily of the Valley.
Dr Alexander Fleming is a double, sweet smelling, pink peony with strong stems and a very good vase life. A very reliable peony variety for cutting.
And finally Sarah Bernhardt has classic double blooms of deep pink petals, which are lighter toward the edges, and has occasional flecks of raspberry throughout.
I also recently bought the floribunda rose bush 'Cuppa Tea' from our local garden centre. 'Cuppa Tea' was released for the first time in 2024 as a pre-order online, and it was sold out before it even reached garden centres that winter. I was disappointed to not get one when it first was released, and was pleased to find out our local garden centre had one available for me to buy this year.
'Cuppa Tea' floribunda rose has clusters of antique platinum blooms open into changing shades of warm lilac hinted with lavender pink. Bushy, healthy growing habit with
mid-green foliage. It was bred in New Zealand by Bob Matthews from his popular for picking creation 'Cappuccino'.
Now having acquired both peonies and a new rose bush, the problem was where to put them...but luckily I had an idea about that.
At the very front of garden alongside the driveway was a small section of garden which had two problematic plants, a rhododendron and an azalea. Routinely while growing, they impinged into the driveway, and make it too narrow for us to drive our car down the driveway without brushing up against them with our car. I'm also not fond of azaleas and rhododendrons, so I was more than happy to dig them out over a number of days.
It was a battle to remove them, but it was finally done. After removing both plants, I added compost to the soil and then dug it over.
To that space I placed the 'Cuppa Tea' rose bush and the Sarah Bernhardt peony off center, so they stayed well far away from the driveway.
To even the garden bed out, I then dug back into the lawn by 10 cm, to increase the size of the front garden area. If I had to choose between more lawn, or more garden to work with, I'll always choose more gardening space.
After removing the turf, I then planted out the Duchesse de Nemours and Dr Alexander Fleming peonies into the new space in the front garden.
With that all done, there is nothing do do but wait for spring, for both the peonies and rose bush to start growing. There is also more space now for other plants to be planted into the front garden. And as for the space between the Cuppa Tea rose and the Sarah Bernhardt peony, I plan to plant two dahlias when they arrive in spring.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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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.
Isapahan.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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Another New Rose Bush
Hello friends,
I rescued another rose bush from Mitre 10. The remaining rose bushes they have in stock are now reduced in price by 50%, and I couldn't help but pick up a climbing rose called Newsflash, for along our back garden fence. It is a bright, clear orange rose, with a pleasant light scent.
It's estimated to get approximately 2.8 metres long, and flowers repeatedly all summer long, and my plan is to train it in both directions along the fence to brighten up that area of the garden. As a bonus it is quite thorny, and it will deter the neighbour over our back fence who likes to come over the top of our side of the fence, and try and hack at our plants...
I'm really loving it's pop of colour in the back garden at the moment.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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No Really, One Last Dahlia Order, And A New Rose Bush Too
Hello friends,
I have a good excuse for one last dahlia order, no really.
Two dahlias that I was expecting to come up above ground, Cafe Au Lait, and also one of my new dahlias, Wizard of Oz, both failed to sprout, and after much impatient waiting I decided to have an exploratory dig around them to see what was happening.
My Cafe Au Lait dahlia was in the middle of rotting, it was so wet in there that a worm moved into the mushy bits that used to be one of my prize dahlias. My other dahlia, Wizard of Oz, had already started rotting too, and all of its eyes had disappeared during the process.
It was what I had guessed had happened. In October we had a huge multiple day rainstorm that ended up with flooding in low lying areas of Dunedin. Dahlias hate being overly wet, and with all the rain we were inundated with, both dahlias had succumbed to rot.
I was very disappointed about this, and I really wanted to replace my Cafe Au Lait dahlia, so I searched the local dahlia bulb companies, and found that Bulbs Direct still had some in stock. And considering that I had lost two dahlias, I also replaced the other dahlia I had lost. Since they no longer had Wizard of Oz dahlia in stock, I instead chose a Strawberry Cream dahlia.
As soon as they arrived by courier, they went straight into the ground. They both had decent sprouts on them, so I was happy about this. They are now both in place in the back garden.
And while I was away for a short holiday in Lake Tekapo, both Cafe Au Lait, and also Strawberry Cream, both came up above ground. I was so happy to see them. Unfortunately when I got back I discovered that one of my other new dahlias, Bacardi, which I got in October from Mount Mera Botanical, also died from rot. It had a bud above ground when I left to go on holiday, but when I got home, the bud was gone, and the bulb had rotted. I'm super sad about this because it was one of my wish list dahlias I've wanted for years. I'll have to fight it out next year to see if I can get another bulb.
And I also bought another rose too. I was in town the other day, and walked past Mitre 10 which was having a 20% off roses sale. A David Austen rose, Celebration Jubilee, was in full flower, and the antique pink colours were just amazing. I bought it, and took it home with me, and then I spent an hour wandering around the back garden trying to figure out where to put it. I eventually found a space near our new maple tree which will do for now. Later on I can move it elsewhere.
It's so nice to have another flowering rose in the back garden, it reminds me that summer is almost here, and that will mean that my dahlias will start flowering too. There's already some dahlias growing flower buds, so it won't be too long before my favorite gardening time of the year is here.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Flower Garden Update Mid-November 2024
Hello friends,
I'd thought I'd share with you some of the plants flowering in my garden right now.
First up, my roses have finally started flowering, including my favorite, which is Blackberry Nip, and also the new rose in the back garden Gertrude Jekyll. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the first rose pictured...
My two new Hostas, Purple Heart and Sleeping Beauty, are looking amazing with new foliage.
And the pansies I grew from seed from Emerden Garden, Antique Shade and Mulberry Shade, are looking amazing now they are flowering. I'll let some set seed at the end of summer, and then that way they'll populate the garden in years to come.
My cosmos are now flowering as well. I have two new varieties this year Sunset Tones (Kings Seeds), and Strawberry Blonde (Emerden Garden), are now starting to flower as well.
I still have unknown ranunculus flowering in the back garden, and all my peonies are about to burst into flower soon too.
There's even more plants about to flower around my garden, but that'll have to wait until another blog post. I've even spotted some of my older dahlias beginning to form flower buds...
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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