by Anna CampbellHey, guys, as promised pictures of my cruise to New Zealand.
Hold on, I hear you say, these are ROSES!!!!
Exactly!
One of the nicest days I had while I was away was at the Botanical Gardens in Wellington and part of those gardens are the magnificent Lady Norwood Rose Gardens which have over 1,200 varieties of rose. And I think every single bush was flowering its heart out when I was there. Absolute paradise and I wish this blog had smell-o-vision for you and you could share the scent of all these roses upon the warm summer air. Gorgeous!
By the way, if you'd like to see photos of things OTHER than roses in New Zealand, please check out the following links:My Favorite Things on my website.
My post about the cruise last week on the Romance Bandits.
If ever you visit Wellington, New Zealand's capital, at the bottom of the North Island, make sure you go to the Botanical Gardens on the hill high up behind the central business district.
Even getting there is fun - you catch a cable car up the VERY steep slope. Then you wander your way through the gardens on your way back down. A lovely way to fill a couple of hours!
You start by going through a heavily wooded area that is like a small rainforest. The picture on the left is of the famous silver fern which is one of the symbols of New Zealand. You can see it really is silver! Pictures of this graceful plant adorns everything from tea towels to pottery here.It was a really warm day when we were in Wellington (check out the blue, blue sky in the panorama picture of the rose gardens!). So spending a couple of hours in the cool greenery of the forest was just lovely. There were lots of trickling streams running down the hill which added to the impression of a verdant sanctuary from modern life.
You can see how much the path down is like a rainforest in this photo on the right! That's a silver fern tree catching the sunlight in the center.Leaving the rainforest, you walk through interesting gardens displaying herbs and Maori medicinal plants.
And then you get to the roses!
Wow, what a beautiful garden!
The plantings are very formal with massed bushes in a single color. Around the edges, climbing roses tumble over timber trellises.As you know from previous posts here, I have a few rose bushes. Sadly where I live on the Sunshine Coast in Australia, it's too humid for them to do really well. Clearly roses LOVE New Zealand!
The colors were so amazing, they almost burnt my eyes. In the strong light, your senses are drenched with all the beauty.
So are you a rose fan? Do you have a favorite rose garden anywhere in the world? Do you have a favorite flower? I must say roses would be close to mine although I adore peonies which are like roses on speed!
24 comments:
Ooh, what a scrumptious post! New Zealand looks so beautiful.
I love David Austin roses. They look much like the pink ones you've shown here. Or maybe they *are* DA roses. :) Whatever they are, they're very pretty.
My poor old Iceberg roses have taken a battering during our renovation, but it's still alive!
Hi Anna,
I love roses and their scents and the roses in NZ, awesome. Such huge blooms! I've seen in quieter suburbs old couples tend their rose gardens so lovingly.
I've got a photo of me in my own rose garden today at my interview with Melinda:
http://writingnotwhining.blogspot.com/2011/01/warrior-wednesday-tales-from-unpubbed_12.html
Beautiful pics, Anna! I do like roses but I'm a bit of a brown thumb with them - even though people have assured me they're hard to kill. We have some in our garden that are thriving - they're the ones I've neglected. Alas the ones I gave TLC to are the ones that turned up their toes!
My fav rose is the Double Delight - I have a friend who is a rose-growing goddess and she has a garden bed of them.
I visit but don't touch!
;)
Sharon
Beautiful, beautiful roses, Anna! Unfortunately they don't grow well in Cairns and I've had to be re-educated to love tropical flowers.
The gorgeous heliconias and gingers look amazing in the garden, but I can't go past the vibrant pink orchards that bloom up here. Not sure what their varietal name is, but a stem can last eight weeks and they thrive on being ignored! Perfect for an absent gardener :-)
Hi Anna,
I love peonies too but I can't grow them now we've moved to the coast. Sigh.
Loved the rose gardens in NZ. If ever you get to Queenstown in the S Island you'll have a ball!
Annie
I do have to say that I adore roses! They are my favorite flower and these pictures more than adequately show why. But I do like other flowers, too, like azaleas, hydrnagea, lilies and bleeding hearts.
Margay
Anna, a beautiful rose garden is Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC
Link: http://www.butchartgardens.com/the-gardens/image-gallery/image-gallery.html
Both of my grandmother's had lovely gardens and they didn't pass it on to me. However, I love receiving them.
Lovely post Anna, hope you are all staying dry with all of the floods.
Hey, V, thanks for checking out the picks. It really was the most gorgeous garden. That lovely pink rose was called Leonardo Da Vinci and I don't think it WAS a DA. I've got a DA in my garden. It's not a prolific flowerer but it's very beautiful when it does. I remember your iceberg roses out the front - so pretty!
Lovely blog, Nas! Good luck with the writing. Yes, I love going around back streets in rose areas and seeing the beautiful gardens. There's something about white roses in humid areas - the bugs just love them. But I remember when I visited Western Australia how I loved the tumbling white roses everywhere. Gorgeous.
Anna
I so love those photos and I love roses and always have I have a few rose bushes growing here at home and the smell and texture of them are so nice I have a Queen Elizabeth and a Blue Moon and I also have a climbing rose in the backyard that has smaller pink roses all over it when it is in bloom heavenly.
Have Fun
Helen
Sharon, laughed at you with your brown thumb! I've got a brown thumb with pot plants, sadly. Just threw out an orchid this morning. Sigh. Poor thing couldn't survive the force of Campbell Care. Looked up Double Delight - gorgeous!
Helene, I remember the beautiful tropical gardens in Cairns. Mind you, with all the rain I've had, I think I'm going to have a tropical garden in the next week or so. Or at least a jungle!
Annie, hoping to see some different parts of NZ on my next visit. Watch this space. It's been such fun sharing the trip with you all upon my return. I adore peonies but they just won't grow in Queensland. I think they need a cold winter.
Margay, nothing beats a rose, does it? I love a lot of other flowers too - jacarandas make the world the most glorious purple late every year, for example.
Marilyn, I checked out the link to Butchart Gardens. I'd never heard of them and they're absolutely spectacular. Hmm, wonder if someone will take me on a cruise to Canada ;-) Thanks for that - just gorgeous!
The floods have been really horrific. I've been lucky enough to be on high ground so I wasn't ever really in danger but it's been heartbreaking seeing the footage on TV.
Helen, thanks for swinging by. So glad you loved the pics. I took hundreds! ;-) I go a bit silly when there are pretty flowers around the place. I have a Queen Elizabeth - beautiful, old-fashioned rose. My mum also planted a Mr. Lincoln which I have to say would be one of my favourites. It's a classic rich red. Lovely. We had a Blue Moon but sadly it didn't survive the care of Campbell! Very pretty rose, though.
Hi Anna, Your trip sounds amazing and you can certainly relive it with your beautiful photos.
I love roses, iris, peonies, camellias, sweet peas, daffodils, agapathus--the list goes on!
My favorite rose garden is my own at my little farm. The climate there is perfect for roses and I have many of them. The scent wafting in to house when they are in bloom is intoxicating.
You have to come visit soon!
Oh, Kandy, I adore camellias. Especially the classic japonicas. We had the most perfect white japonica in our garden on the farm when I was growing up - it was so delicate, the slightest touch turned the petals brown but in its pristine state, it was breathtaking. I've seen the roses from your garden and they've gorgeous! Love the idea of a visit.
Beautiful post, Anna. What magnificent roses! I so envy you the NZ trip.
I'm never any good at picking favourites, but I love the lavender coloured rose that grows at my front fence. Its scent is like pink musk (not one I'd like in a perfume but it seems to fit the flower). I also love Stefanotis (am I spelling that correctly?) and I have a great fondness for pansies as my grandmother used to keep a pansy garden at her house just for me.
Christine, how lovely about your grandmother having a pansy garden for you. I love pansies - such velvety petals. I had to look stephanotis up - how pretty!!! Thanks for checking out the pics!
Gorgeous photos, Anna! I love to wander through flower gardens. One of the prettiest I've been in is the Gardens of Augustus on Capri: beautiful flowers, amazing views and the incredible feeling of walking through gardens that were created by order of Julius Caesar.
My favorite flower is the yellow rose.
Absolutely gorgeous gardens!
I loooove roses and I have such
terrible luck with them! Mother
had a green thumb with roses and most all plants. My thumb: BLACK.
So sad! If I had all the money I
have spent on rose bushes over the past 40 years! I keep trying in
hopes that green thumb would come
to live at our house-NO LUCK!
Wow, PJ, I've been to Capri but I missed the gardens. Isn't it a gorgeous island? And so much more rugged than I imagined it would be. It was seriously scary negotiating some of those hairpin bend roads in a bus! I'll have to go back!
Pat, I love roses too, partly because they're such a cherished memory of my late mother who adored roses too. Sorry to hear you don't have any luck with them. I don't do too badly, especially considering the climate here really isn't conducive to great rose growing. I miss the farm I lived on when I was growing up - we had whole huge beds of roses and used to cut blooms by the bucket full. Absolutely no exaggeration! As a kid, I didn't realize quite how spoilt that made me but I realize now!
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