Roses, Roses, Roses! - Anna Campbell

by Anna Campbell

Hey, 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!