The Rose Garden at Kew. Vital still in November ….

Remember Remember the 5th of November, Gunpowder, treason and.... Roses? This floriferous rose garden certainly has other ideas about a quiet slide into senescence, leaf-drop and rose-hips - these are flower-packed shrubs with more to come. Colour, fragrance aplenty and fresh, clean leaves in abundance. A remarkable display given it really is November and hardly…

A Kew Gardens Miscellany – the Roses (some flower, lots of hips), a glide through the Davies Alpine House and of course, some autumn leafery (see the Ginkgos) …

An unexpected bit of free time today and lo! A parking space by the Victoria Gate which meant I had to stop - and (first things first) smell the roses. Gertrude Jekyll, Stanwell Perpetual and Madame Isaac Pereire brought High Summer right back on a mostly overcast mid-November day. Soul food. From the Rose Garden,…

Roses, like you had to guess … plus some herbaceous beauties. A few things that caught my eye at Petersham Nurseries today –

Well I had my macro lens with me today, hence the kind of images you have here - and plenty of roses to draw the eye (and nose - to take a gorgeous sniff). Not much time but I had to photograph some flowers today after a day photographing a wedding yesterday. Lovely, lively day…

A busy day at Petersham Nurseries – hundreds of new roses from David Austin… (Advertorial Alert!!)

A busy day at Petersham Nurseries, collecting a generous delivery of roses from David Austin - more standard roses including Desdemona, Tranquility and Olivia Rose Austin - large specimen shrubs and large specimen climbers plus a whole host of shrubs, climbers, ramblers (and repeat flowering ramblers at that) to keep us happy for a week…

Roses at Kew Gardens – Wild Roses, Old Roses, English Roses. A Grand Start and so much more to come…

and the new 2015/16 Handbook of Roses, which I picked up at the first RHS London Rose Show today... and a duck, at Kew Gardens, to round things off!! The Rose Garden at Kew Gardens today - with a lot of roses popping but still much, much, much more to come - a fine selection…

If you were expecting more Autumnal fireworks, wait in line – in Kew Gardens, the roses continue to shine….

The Rose Garden at Kew today - I was expecting a delicious crop of hips amongst otherwise bedraggled roses, in the garden behind the Palm House at Kew Gardens this afternoon. I called in more to capture some of the arboreal autumnal fireworks from the likes of the Sweet Gum, Liquidamber styraciflua, the gorgeous Cotinus…

Putting on a Petersham show… roses by me, styling by Amanda

and from our Doyenne of the Displays, Lady of the Carts, Madame Maestro.... Filled, finessed, crafted and created, displays at Petersham Nurseries, styling by Amanda - the newest member of the Horticulture Green Team. Roses by me....!  

Ma Perkins, Mme Caroline Testout, Constance Spry, D T Poulson, Belle Isis, Dainty Maid, Mary Rose, Baroness Rothschild, Chaucer, Mme de Tartas, Lady Mary Fitzwilliam and Duchesse de Montebello – all related to David Austin’s brother-in-law…

 Ma Perkins, Mme Caroline Testout, Constance Spry, Belle Isis, Dainty Maid, DT Poulson, Mme de Tartas, Lady Fitzwilliam, Mary Rose, Baroness Rothschild, Chaucer and Duchesse de Montebello - all parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles, great aunts or great uncles - or cousins - of LD Braithwaite - who is David Austin's brother in law! Confused, you will be:…

Split personalities

One plant, two roses. David Austin rose, Winchester Cathedral Winchester Cathedral, the white, is a 'sport' of an old David Austin favourite, Mary Rose. A sport (in a nutshell) is a spontaneous mutation, identical in all outward respects save, in this instance, flower colour, (though it may also, for example, be a climbing sport of…