Flowers are simply amazing! One of the benefits of having a garden is that you generally always have some kind of flower that you can cut and bring into the house.
During spring and summer there is an abundance of them. If you have roses you can cut you’re going to have loads of fun. But there are also so many other options for decorating your home.
There are some amazing people out there who arrange flowers professionally. I’ve got some friends who are just so inspiring when you see what they do with floral displays. Sadly I’m not one of these people, but this doesn’t mean I don’t try.
I think it helps that I actually like flowers. One of my first ever obsessions as a child was with flowers. I remember being about four years old and spending all my time in the garden watching the buds appear, I couldn’t wait until they opened.
I used to be totally in love with tulips. They fascinated me. The first flower I ever drew was a tulip and my grandfather sat down with me and showed me how to draw it. It’s amazing how such early influences shape our lives. After that I moved in to other flowers including irises.
We had a large patch of them in the garden and I can still remember their smell, the rich burgundy of the petals and their waxy texture. They were almost as tall as I was and I thought they were just magic.
This memory came flooding back to me a few years ago when, at the Biannual Czech Garden fair in Litoměřice, we discovered a wonderful woman selling every type of iris. Needless to say, I go to her stall every year and purchase more of these beautiful plants.
Roses have become a real thing for me over the years. I now have probably over a hundred rose bushes in the garden at No 19. However, it’s only in the last few years that I’ve really enjoyed them as a flower. My parents were never rose fans and I suppose this influenced me when I was younger.
There are so many types of rose and it can get really overwhelming especially when you know very little about them. A lady wrote to me recently asking my advice about roses. I’m no expert whatsoever, but I do think it’s easy to be scared of planting roses as, when you read up on them, they seem to be such difficult flowers.
I went into roses blind and just tried… and sometimes failed. I bought some bushes I liked the look of. I discovered others I liked better. I came to realize I like historic roses and David Austin roses as they have truly amazing colours, romantic flowers and I like they way the shrubs grow … I also find them pretty easy to care for.
I leave most of my roses to grow naturally. I dead head when I remember and cut back a little in early spring. During this hot summer they’re doing much better than most of my other plants now that they’re well established.
The first rose I bought for my garden here was William Morris. I still have this bush and it’s doing very well flowering for the second time this year.
After this is was gifted a Lady of Shalott. I’m sure I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m not a huge fan of orange, but this rose is just amazing. It grows so well and so easily and flowers throughout the summer. I’ve taken numerous cuttings from my original bush and they seem to just want to grow.
These look lovely in a vase with some blue geraniums or borage on a table. I have so much blue in my house and this soft orange really complements it.
A few other roses I really love are: La Negresse, mme Isaac Pereire, St Swithun, Rambling Rector, La Bella Sultana, The Pilgrim, Redoute… there are really so many.
I’m actually a big fan of wild flowers in and around the house. When I’m on my morning walks with Lu, there’s just so much natural beauty. Many of the roadsides we walk along are just packed with Tansy, Yarrow, and umbelliferous plants of all descriptions which look amazing in vases. Many of these would not be great I’m the garden as they’re a little invasive, but they’re magic in displays.
I’ve recently seen a patch of wild Hops that I’ve got my eye on. They’re so beautiful used to decorate a dull corner of the house, around a fireplace or on the banisters of the stairs. The green is beautiful.
Bedding plants usually get lost in my garden as it tends to get pretty wild in the growing season. I sometimes buy pansies or ornamental daisies and put them in antique clay pots or willow pattern china to brighten up the house.
Hyacinths are fabulous flowers as are many of the spring bulbs. I love having them in pots through the house in the build up to spring. As soon as they’ve flowered, I find a suitable patch in the garden for them to live.
Blossom is another simple and beautiful addition to any room. While it lasts, it’s the most beautiful flower and can bring height to a display.
A lot of the late summer plants are amazing to dry. Tansy and Yarrow are my favorites. The Yarrow Cloth of Gold keeps its shape and colour for years.
There are also the usual pinecones and seed heads, hydrangeas living or dried, pumpkins and fruits… There’s so much you can do with these and they don’t have to be used in the traditional way. I think it’s good to have fun and be creative.
The one thing about getting older is seeing how our tastes and ideas change. We can also sometimes surprise ourselves and try something we thought we’d never enjoy. I’ve never been keen on dried glasses, maybe I’ll surprise myself and bring some into the house this autumn 💛
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💜All photography is my own.
💙Feel free to comment on how you like to use flowers in the house.