The wild rose briar is sweet in spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?
(Emily Jane Bronte – ‘Love is like the wild rose briar’)
Well June certainly is our month of the rose in the garden. We have such a show to be excited about. Not only our long standing roses at the front of the house which have so many flowers – whites and reds and more but we have our recent additions to the garden courtesy of national rose grower, David Austin. Of course we have the standard rose donated by them and planted two years ago to commemorate Charlotte’s 200th birthday which is a beautiful whitish rose edged with a hint of pink. It can be seen in the parsonage rear garden. A year ago we added a special rose in the ‘Branwell’ bed ourselves also at the rear which is an orangey colour.
Our latest additions are again from David Austin. These are three rose bushes of a new variety officially named “Emily Brontë” also commemorating her 200th birthday. A beautiful blush rose. Two of these roses are placed in the front garden and one in the rear. The rose was a best seller at the recent Chelsea flower show. Representatives of the parsonage staff attended the show, again courtesy of David Austin, and were presented with the roses.
All the roses not only look beautiful but they smell beautiful too!
Other matters apart from roses have been keeping us very busy in the garden this month not least of all trying to keep the garden watered in view of the very dry weather that we have been having as well as coping with storm ‘Hector’ in the earlier part of the month. Both Jenny and I have been hosing the garden whenever we have been there. The weather pattern for the second half of the month seems to be remaining very dry so this task will no doubt be continuing, although it seems sad to be hoping for rain!
We have been enjoying seeing the new bed dedicated to Emily this year gradually becoming more and more established and we keep adding small plants along the way. Jenny has introduced some sweet peas to climb branches of some bushes that we cut back and I recently added a Michaelmas Daisy to keep the flowering going into autumn.
Having prepared the garden for the Brontë Society weekend earlier in the month we are now beginning to gear ourselves up for Emily’s birthday party weekend at the end of July. We hope to see you there!
read more