It was raining as I entered Rogers Rose Garden in Hamilton Gardens, New Zealand. Not great for taking photographs as I was constantly wiping the lens, but the scent was perfect. This must be one of the largest rose gardens I have visited. It may seem a bit odd for an English person to seek out a rose garden abroad when we have so many gorgeous English roses, but I love roses and I was keen to see what the Kiwis did with them.
And I am glad that I did. The birds sang despite the rain. The flowers nodded their heads and the rain-drops dripped gently – this was a summer rain, soft and wet, not cold and heavy. It settled like dew upon the velvet petals. The garden was a kaleidoscope of colour.
I wandered through the beds of old fashioned roses featuring some of the roses that Empress Josephine grew at her estate, called Malmaison. There are Species Roses too – the source of the Modern Rose.
Persian Roses, Chinese Silk Roses, Roses of the New World and Roses of the Ancient World are grown at either side of the pathway leading to the open pergola beyond.
Cherry
For the last fifty years ‘Peace’ has remained the world’s most popular rose. Bred by Francis Meilland (1912 – 1958) it has a long and romantic history. With its delicate shades of yellow and cream, flushed with pink and a light fragrance it is at its most beautiful when fully opened with the large globular blooms.
Some of the roses were showing signs of decay but the fading blooms still have a beauty of their own.
I hope you have enjoyed this step into summer-time in the southern hemisphere. I know that I was happy to bring back the colours and fragrances to keep me going until the roses once more bloom again in the north.
Earth laughs in flowers 
I love roses too and have a Peace rose in my rose garden. This summer they are doing particularly well after some good rain and a bit of TLC. Lovely photos.
I remember my Dad having Peace roses years and years ago.
My absolute favourite is Julia’s Rose. It is a gorgeous parchment colour.
Oh, that is gorgeous. I might have to get one when I have a garden in honour of my son’s partner who is called Julia 🙂
When the next bud opens I will photograph it and post it here for you to see. (Now that a clever person taught me how to post a photo in a comment!!)
Thank you, that would be nice 😉
it is beautiful!!
I would have liked to spend more time there, but it was raining and my family were waiting for me. I much prefer exploring on my own as I can take ages just looking and photographing places.
Thank you for sharing. I love roses, and with only a balcony to garden on, don’t have much room for them. I had roses in the garden i had in the house i grew up in, along with pansies and marigolds. And some veggies, LOL. One’s spirit can live in a rose garden, but one’s body needs more substances (sorry for the misspelling)
Roses do indeed lift the spirit, but they do need room and attention. I have a couple in pots, but always dream of a rose trellis or arbour!
So beautiful I can almost smell them! I really like raindrops on roses 🙂 Lovely processing too Jude!
Lots of raindrops on roses 🙂 A lovely garden Sarah. I like the new rose garden at Wisley too (though it’s not so new now)
Looked divine! Yes, the Jubilee Rose Garden is lovely and definitely maturing now. What I really love at Wisley is all the companion planting amongst the roses 🙂
Such lovely petals. I’ve spent many a soothing hour collecting and drying rose petals (and rise hips in the fall) for various projects. Thanks for the pretty blooms in the middle of winter 🌹🌹🌹
I remember trying to make perfume from rose petals as a child. Always ended up with brown water! Nice to see the roses today as it is snowing here at the moment!
I do love rose gardens, the fragrance, form and colours are just perfect, this one looks romantic.
I think it is a place you could spend all day in, but the best of the gardens is yet to come…
Something to look forward to then 🙂
Beautiful Jude and the grass over there is so green…
All that rain!!
Love Sexy Bexy and Auckland Metro, Jude! I like the old English, huge roses best. Mam had Peace, of course, Piccadilly and Blue Moon, I remember. I forget to hop over to this blog sometimes! Your opening shot is a gem 🙂 I do like your nifty collage with the black and white background too. Is that fiddly to do? Just curious- I’m most unlikely to copy 🙂
Header is done using pixlr autodesk – easy peasy Jo! And free!
I have been thinking that perhaps it is time to merge this blog with my travel blog (which is no longer just about travel ) as I don’t get a lot of traffic on here, and I think some of the garden pieces might interest people who do follow my other blog. Dunno, I’ll see how things go for a while.
Now that you’ve got Benches running, it’d probably fit well. But you’ve just done your lovely revamp, which I really like. 🙂
Your roses are beautiful, my favourite the last, I think: so dense with delicacy and colour. I like the different ways you’ve presented too – circles, collage, b&w. I’d like to garland Stalin’s Gift with roses. They’d look wonderful against concrete-grey in the mist. (Think I’m still a bit travel-drunk!)
Anything would be improved with the addition of roses Meg 🙂