And smell the roses
June arrives with roses. From tightly bound buds comes the fullness of soft plump petals. Fragrant old varieties, rich in history, flower once and rest again while modern thoroughbreds reproduce blooms with gracious ease.
Foxgloves arrive in June too, most often country travellers, arriving by Nature’s design. The unapologetic company are happiest making themselves quite at home.
In the garden shown below, which I am fortunate to know well, the designer’s intention was a glade of white foxgloves. Happily, their pink relatives have a healthy disregard for segregation. They have every right to be there and I find the beauty of it uplifting.
There’s something magical about these woodlanders, arriving to make camp and erect swaying towers of colour that hum to the song of busy bees.
The roses welcome pollinators too, with ‘come hither’ fragrance and velvet boudoir petals. ” Stay a while!” they whisper sweetly. “Let’s enjoy the romance!”
This shoebox of romance arrived on my doorstep unannounced. A gift from someone I love, who knows my ways in June – always ready to stop and smell the roses.
And perhaps gather up dropped petals in a short lived summer pot pourri. While I share these pictures, how I wish I could send fragrance too!
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may!
From Robert Herrick’s 1648 poem ‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time’
brigid benson 