:: rosa xxxix ::

Recently, at each birthday Miss P has been enjoying receiving a rose as part of her gifts and one rose we had to leave behind at our old house...

...it was called 'absolutely fabulous' and a glorious, golden-yellow floribunda rose it was, producing loads of luscious blooms in a radiant display...

...so sadness turned to joy this birthday as we managed to find another one!

:: rosa xxxviii ::

another stunning rose from the Lady Norwood Garden at the Wellington Botanic Gardens - 'oranges and lemons' - thanks Dad :-) !

:: rosa xxxvii ::

Rose Leonardo da Vinci at the Lady Norwood Rose Garden in the Wellington Botanic Gardens, photo credit to my Dad, who visited there last week with my Mum.

Not too much to say as to leave on 'the' schedule this morning, I should officially not be having time to do a blog post LOL!

...off up further North this morning to Mangawhai Heads...

:: calendula v ::

Happ-bee Friday!

:: rosa xxxvi ::

there is an abundance of these lush, ruby red roses along the road parallel to our local river at this time of year...a long wait for them and they are magnificent when they bloom...yum!

:: rosa xxxv ::

Two more rose photos and that would make ten percent of my flower photos this year roses - maybe there are lots around or maybe this is one of my favourite blooms?

...this one has been coming back to good health since we have been here, actually watering, feeding and pruning it...

...I like to believe that it enjoys the climbing frame in its West-facing position and basks the afternoon away, exuding subtle rose fragrance...and tones, of course, splendidly with the PINK Summerhill Stone cladding ;-)

:: rosa xxxiv ::

Watching flowers evolve (or die!) is something I enjoy the marvel of - leaving them in the vase to fully, voluptously, delicately express their all - well as far as a flower can, that has been snipped and (artfully, of course!) arranged into a vase in a house.

The texture, the colour and the form all metamorphose into a glorious, fragile yet powerful, exquiste 'spentness'...may we all hold the courage within us to be able to do the same!

[this rose is one from the same vase from Saturday just past]

:: rosa xxxiii ::

roses are bursting open at a ferocious rate now...and this year I've actually remembered to water them, and they seem to be rewarding my efforts :)

:: rosa xxxii ::

intense colour for an intense day!

:: rosa xxxi ::

Look what just opened in the rose 'patch'??? From a slender twig of a stem, something new has arisen...I didn't even know this was in the 'patch'!!

:: rosa xxx ::

:: rosa xxix ::

rose

 

This photo was clearly not taken today, although the sun has blasted through a couple of times, between lovely, heavy drenchings...yay - I don't have to water the garden today - one thing off my list!

:: rosa xxviii ::

the wonder of nature...these roses were all drippy with raindrops...but only on the outside - the 'vital' centres were dry...heads bent forwards with the weight of the rain...a survival mechanism?

:: fragaria vesca ::

alpine strawberry

:: camellia iv ::

random facts for the day: camellia oil is commonly used to clean and protect the blades of cutting instruments and in Japan is used in hair care...!

:: aloe ferox ii ::

giving myself a daily floral focus I believe is honing my observational skills...like a heat-seeking missile I am all eyes at the flowers...this tree aloe or 'cape', 'red', 'tap' or 'bitter' aloe I walk past every day...

and it is only this year that I noticed the flowers beginning to bloom as they are now - all swollen buds and powdery stamens and 'come get me' in their amazing fiery glow...gorgeous!

:: rosa xxiv ::

Special day, the 1st of July - a very happy big birthday for Mr. A!

:: the calendula and the bombus ::

I wandered out with a whim and a fancy to forage for a whole swag of gorgeous calendula to colour-up the inside of the house...out into the fast-falling Southerly-driven drops of wet, cold rain...

...and look what treasure I came back with - the memory captured in a photo of this fat, furry little fellow sheltering right under one of said lusciously-vermillion blooms encrusted with shining rain drop jewels...that's my kind of happy! Yum! Thank you Nature!

:: rosmarinus officinalis ::

Rosemary or 'dew of the sea' after the Latin for dew 'ros' and sea 'marinus', is one of the herbs I have grown for the longest time.  There will be a photo of me somewhere hefting a sledge hammer into the concrete outside the kitchen at my parents' home in order to get a place to grow my herbs, when I was about 16 and newly interested in food and the connection to my health. I did actually break up an area of about 2 sqm in a right-angled triangular space and had a lovely assortment of things growing including rosemary, which I planted first and lemon verbena, I seem to remember...

...in our garden today I have the prostrate version growing in a couple of places, slowly making a dense cover along the path to the letterbox with the Chillean guava or NZ cranberry bushes. As the garden is so bare and 'spent', it is one of a few things daring to still bloom - thank you Rosemary!

:: aloe ferox ::

Something we inherited and which Miss P immediately gravitated about...this fairly magnificent specimen of tree aloe...

...from South Africa this 'cape', 'red', 'tap' or 'bitter' aloe is used in the making of medicinal purgative bitters and also the gel, which isn't bitter, is used in some cosmetics...

ferociously spiky and bold - it stands about 1.5m tall and almost as wide as sentinel next to the gate - watch out if you enter our place ;-) !!

Once a year it flowers on a spike of three or four or five that perch up above the foliage...in this rusty orange - so beautiful...

...today it was a drippy, drippy wet kind of day with fat droplets forming and hanging about languidly for most of it...

...I enjoyed these flowers with droplets reminding me of Christmas tree baubles!