We are visiting C’s dad and it’s colder here than at home. Because New Zealand is long and narrow North to South, travelling even a few hours by car changes the climate. It’s rainy and windy, a good day to stay inside and take photos.
We stopped for the night at the beach on the way, and there were masses of flowers. There were lots of Shirley Poppies and Soldier Poppies, but they were full of bumble bees and bees, so I decided to bring some of the big double roses which are all coming into full flush.
The very full magenta rose in the centre is a Delbard Rose, ‘Chartreuse de Parme’. It’s a smallish hybrid tea rose with a beautiful scent. For ages I wondered about the name, and finally looked it up. It’s nothing to do with green chartreuse, it means ‘The Charterhouse of Parma’, which is a 1948 movie based on the novel by Stendhal. The rose is in the ‘Grand Perfums’ collection.
The distinctive bright pink colour of Gertrude Jekyll is easy to recognise, a tall English Rose with masses of flowers on upright stems and a strong fruity scent.
Lichfield Angel is covered with creamy blooms on stems which are almost too thin to hold the heavy round buds. This is another David Austin rose described as an ‘English Musk’ with a light but nice scent.
The deep red rose is either ‘Mister Lincoln’, or ‘Deep Secret’, or something I have forgotten. And there is a small Gardenia ‘Professor Pucci’. All together the scent is wonderful.
I was going to put the roses and the taller flowers all together, but in the end they worked better in separate vases. The pink Foxglove is ‘Strawberry Merton’. Unlike the standard foxgloves this one is a perennial, and in my garden it’s quite a bit shorter, not much taller than the penstemons. The mauve Penstemon is ‘Alice Hindley’, and the white one is ‘Snowstorm’.
Cathy at Rambling in the Garden hosts this meme, inspiring others to grow and bring flowers inside to make every day a little nicer.
Absent Gardener 
A sumptuous example of early summer in a vase.
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Thank you Christina. It was nice having some different vases and a different environment.
The roses are marvelous. I like that you used lamb’s ears for foliage.
Thank you, I love the lambs ears and they are a favourite of many types of bee. These ones were really crowding the Lichfield Angel. It Is in a very sheltered spot so I think it needs a little more space for air to help it fight off black spot, which it seems to suffer from.
Such an elegant offering today. Lovely.
Thank you 🙂
Sumptuous is exactly the word I was going to use, rich and sumptuous – and the ‘Chartreuse de Parme’ inparticular is a gorgeous colour, not a colour that I have amongst my own roses. Your pink perennial foxglove iseally pretty and I wonder if we can get that in the UK? ps interesting to read what you said about the changes in the weather in NZ
Thanks Cathy, Chartreuse de Parme is a beautiful colour, I’ve seen it described as purple, which I don’t really think it is. I think you should be able to get Digitalis × mertonensis Strawberry, the RHS says it’s hardy in most of the UK. It grew easily from seeds for me.
Thanks Cath – I will look out for seeds
You were right to make your main vase all roses but I love the first photo where the foxglove is peeking in.
Thank you Rickii, they were all a bit wayward the penstemons and foxgloves – pointing in all directions.
Gorgeous, gorgeous. I love fat roses. The colour are fabulous and the foxgloves so lovely. I’m taken back to summer though it’s cold and grey here and we are expecting a hard frost. 😦
Thank you 🙂 I hope you don’t lose any plants in the frost. I love walking on crunchy frosted grass in the morning, it’s a rare pleasure here.
The roses are gorgeous. The ‘Strawberry Merton’ foxglove makes me mourn the loss of my perennial foxgloves – woolly mealybugs were a constant problem so I gave them up.
Oh, yes foxgloves seem to be a plant which really enjoys moisture, I would imagine they would struggle if it was dry and hot for too long.
Gorgeous roses and Foxgloves Cath. Everything seems to be turning to mush here with recent heavy rainfall followed by hard frost. I can’t tell you how lovely it is to see proper flowers again!
Thank you Gillian. Rain and frost together sounds harsh.
What lovely roses! I wish I could smell them! The foxgloves are pretty too, but the roses win this week Cath! 🙂
Thank you, they won with me too, the scent was really lovely and strong.
There is something lovely and old-fashioned about these roses. Litchfield Angel is too pretty for words.
I do love it, although it’s struggling with black spot it is loaded with flowers.