My first roses are in bloom. Sometimes Rosa xanthina ‘Canary Bird’ blooms in April but this year it has waited until May. It is a large shrub and it is covered in primrose yellow single blooms.
Rosa xanthina ‘Canary Bird’
Also in yellow, but with slightly larger flowers and a deeper buttercup yellow, I have Rosa ‘Helen Knight’. It is a seedling of Rosa ecae and has lovely ferny leaves like those of ‘Canary Bird’
Rosa ‘Helen Knight’
Rosa ‘Helen Knight’
I have picked a few of each but once in the vase they look pretty similar.
In case you are thinking that the little figures on the jug are rather rash frolicking naked in early May, it is unusually hot and sunny and just the sort of weather for gathering rosebuds and dancing in one’s birthday suit. But one doesn’t want to scare the neighbours and get a reputation for being eccentric. Besides, at my age it’s not very dignified. So I am decently attired, but still dancing because the weather is heavenly and the garden is wearing its best party dress.
And as well as gathering rosebuds, ‘We’ll gather lilacs in the Spring again’. At least I will; gathering lilacs isn’t the Pianist’s idea of a fun morning.
I have no idea which lilac this is, it was here when we came and every year I threaten it because it has such encroaching ways and is so uninteresting for most of the year. But when it blooms I forgive it everything. It shows such generosity in producing its fleeting flowers and of course, it has such an exquisite scent.
Just bury your nose in this. Heavenly.
Thanks to Cathy at ramblinginthegarden for encouraging us to put something in a vase on Monday. I expect everyone will have beautifully bountiful vases now that May is here. Do go and look.
Chloris
I love the delicate small roses. I have a Banksia that managing to survive in a spot with virtually no soil and isn’t irrigated (I really should move it and give it a chance to grow to its full potential.
Roas banksia ‘Lutea’ is a gem and grows like a triffid. Mine isn’t out yet but it won’t be long.
I’ve had mine for 10 years and is still only about a metre high; it clings to life by its finger nails!!!!
Well, perhaps it deserves a little TLC. Mine is only 10 years old from a cutting and it has reached the top of an apple tree and is eyeing the rest of the garden.
I love that vase! It has a Vanessa Bell sort of look about it. It is lovely to see roses too! I think I might get my first today – ‘A Shropshire Lad’ is about to burst his breeches. Lilac is such a poor unfortunate shrub, isn’t it? Everyone wants to cut it down for 11 months of the year, and then remembers how lovely it is in May. Enjoy your beautiful Blooming Garden today!
Thank you Ali. I love my little jug. It is made by a Sussex-based ceramicist called Yolande. She seems to be very keen on exuberant, naked, cavorting figures.
Godness, your Shropshire Lad is early. This weather is going to bring on all the roses early. What joy. Thank you, I am enjoying my blooming garden enormously and you must be in heaven in yours too.
I love your single roses – your garden was the first to show me how beautiful they could be … I’d always gone for the complex whorls of David Austin’s before.
Also love the Lilac. Used to think it was ugly, as you see so many that people gave thoughtlessly hacked about. Like you, I adore them when flowering time comes around and I actually hunt them out to see what different hues I can find !
Amanda at Wildcarrotphotography
Hello Amanda. Yes, as you know I am very fond of single roses. I specially love these two as they bloom so early.
The color and form of the roses are lovely. The way you’ve photographed your vases reflecting the blue sky in the table is quite beautiful too.
Thank you Susie. I was delighted at how the glass top of the table reflects the blue sky and the brightly coloured trees.
Those yellow roses make a charming arc coming up from the vase, if that makes sense. They are a lovely gentle yellow too, not brash at all. I had no idea people felt like that about lilac, but I think azaleas and rhododendrons are a bit boring most of the year too!
I agree about rhododendrons and azaleas, however gorgeous they are I can’t love them and yes they are dull for most of the year.
I miss lilacs, as it is too hot to grow them here. Yours are bringing back childhood memories of picking lilacs and most of all the scent.
The smell of lilacs takes me straight back to childhood.
I love your sunny yellow roses and think the vessel is very appropriate for warm spring days. Who wouldn’t want to dance in the warmth? I say embrace your eccentricity and frolic sans clothing. After all May 5 was international nude gardening day. (I don’t participate; it wouldn’t be pretty.) There’s nothing like the sweet fragrance of lilacs; wouldn’t it be marvelous if the plant were more interesting?
Frolicing is one thing but gardening in one’s birthday suit? Crazy idea, don’t you have nettles, thorns and stinging insects? Ouch it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Those lilacs — I can almost smell them way over here! So lovely; no wonder you keep it, despite its shortcomings. Thanks for sharing your lovely arrangements! -Beth
Yes, there is nothing quite like the scent but if only it would last a bit longer.
A pot of sunshine!
I’m all for a bit of cavorting in the garden in such glorious weather – but like you I think it best not to frighten my neighbours! Love that vase – do you have a link to Yolande’s website?
Sorry, I don’t have a link for her website, but her name is Yolande Beer and she is based in Sussex.
What beautiful yellow roses. I adore the vase with the frolicking naked dancers! My neighbors probably think I’m eccentric–but that’s for going out in my pajamas to peruse the front yard for flowers (no shame!). I love the lilacs. I sort of feel the same way about azaleas here–they’re blah all year, then utterly stunning for a few weeks.
Pyjamas are very practical for gardening. I have some strange gardening gear, specially in winter.
I know what you mean about azaleas and rhhododendrons, most of the year they are rather ugly.
Your single roses are beautiful and the bees like them too. No sign of roses around here yet, and the sun is hiding too…
I love single roses, they are all coming into bloom now as we are having such glorious warm weather.
Oh my roses and lilacs….what a treat….fragrance, color and beauty in your vases!
Thank you Donna, the roses are all coming into bloom now. Heaven!
The first roses – how exciting! I was pleased to see buds on some of mine, but I am giving all my new ones a bit of a gentle talking to as I would like them to be making an impact on opening days. Your garden must be awash with colour with all these gorgeous blooms – and with all that fresh foliage you could easily frolic naked and nobody would see (the Pianist could turn a blind eye). I have my own eyes on some lilac growing on a local railway embankment which might make it into a vase without having to put up with an ugly tree,
And how wonderful the roses are going to be perfect for your open day. It is such a joy to watch them all gradually unfurling.
This is such a pretty and delicate rose and very early. I will have to go and check mine for buds, everything is moving so fast I can’t keep up just now.
And now all the roses are coming into bloom. Absolute heaven.
Oh, those delicate roses are just adorable! I really enjoyed the jug too, fabulous! I heard it was naked gardening day recently, good heavens, too many biting things, thorns and sharp edges to consider such a deadly initiative….and I’d be afraid of traumatizing the neighbours….xxx
Naked gardening day? Ouch! Think of all those nettles, thorns and brambles in vulnerable places. I don’t even like being sleeveless.
Although the floral trusses are dense like the contemporary French hybrid lilacs, the size of the plant and foliage suggest that it is the common lilac, Syringa vulgaris. There are so many cultivars now that it is impossible to distinguish them from each other. Even your older plant would not be easy to identify. I used to grow the French hybrids. I did not like them as much as the common lilac.
You are quite right, it is Syringa vulgaris. I have a later flowering white one which puzzles me, it looks rather like a Canadian lilac and doesn’t have much fragrance.
The white one ‘could’ be Syringa vulgaris ‘Madame Lemoine’, which is one of the French hybrids, but if so, it should be quite fragrant. I liked it only because it is white, but it was my second favorite to the original. I have never heard of a Canadian lilac. (Maybe it is a French Canadian hybrid. tee hee)
I think Canadian hybrids are known as Syringa x prestoniae.
Goodness. There is too much to keep track of nowadays.
Your lemon yellow roses are gorgeous, Chloris, and both roses and lilacs are so floriferous, so happy are they in your garden!
And now all the other roses are starting, rose time is absolute heaven.
Mmmmm, can almost smell that lilac just looking at it! Your Canary rose is glorious and they look wonderful in a vase too! 🙂
They are both such a bonus for late spring vases.
I don’t know which I enjoy more – your flowers or your vases. Dance on!
Still dancing!
The yellow roses are just the thing for your vase. Who wouldn’t want to jump around with a fist full of these cheerful beauties? I love the photos with the table-top reflections too. Your lilacs jump off the page!
Yes, lilacs and early roses are an absolute delight in late spring.
Beautiful vase! I’ve always liked the little yellow roses of spring but they have a bad reputation here for blackspot. The lilac on the other hand I have to sneak in even if it is painfully dull for 49 weeks of the year.
Yes, blackspot is a great curse of roses, some roses are worse than others and some are so bad that I have given up on them altogether. Still it is supposed to be a sign of clean air.
Lilacs AND roses! You do have something to celebrate, clothed or not. No lilacs here (unless you count Ceanothus aka the California lilac). Meanwhile, my roses are putting on a paltry show. I’d hoped to come home after several days away to find ‘Lady Emma Hamilton’ blooming as she had a couple of buds when I left but I returned to find them incinerated – apparently our temperatures soared to 90F for 2 days while I was away.
Lady Emma Hamilton is one of mt favourites, I hope she will recover.
I know what you mean about the Lilacs, I wait all year for those few days of blissful fragrance.
Gorgeous aren’t they?
I love the frolicking figures, I love the word frolicking! Great duo of arrangements, simple but definitely shouting Spring. 🙂
Thank you. Just found you lurking in my spam Gill. Whatever were you doing in there?
Maybe it was the word “frolick”? 🙂
Yes, you are probably right, but other people have been talking about Nude Gardeners Day with impunity.
Nude is ok frolicking is clearly not!
Lilac is such a heavenly scent yet the rest of the year it is a dullard and badly behaved suckering and grabbing more space. Forgiven in May!
Those yellow roses are so pretty, Chloris!