A Rose By Any Other Name

Every year, in the small town where I live, we hold a ‘Rose Week’ which is actually more like ‘Rose Fortnight’.  It started off as a week and gradually they kept adding days and now who knows how long it will run for in the future?

We are lucky that we have one of the largest private rose gardens in the Southern Hemisphere here, and this is where the interest in roses lies.

Plus, apparently we have the perfect climate for roses.  Didn’t know that, but now I do.

There are many events held around the town that we go to – our quilting group is holding a quilt show this weekend, and I promise I’ll show you lots of photos.  But one of the highlights is a town hall decorated with rose formations.

My Auntie, who can’t sew a stitch despite having a very clever mother, has the ‘gardener’ gene and is one of the organisers of the display.

The event is held in what we call our “Institute”, a beautiful old building with wooden floors and a stage where they used to have dances, apparently.  i will take some outside photos some day and show you.  One of those old buildings with marvellous columns outside and just gorgeous architecture.

In the foyer of the building is a ‘Roll Of Honour’, a list of names of those who served in the wars, along with special note of those who died in service.  I understand this is a very Australian thing, in that most small towns have such a building.  Do they have them where you live?

Every year, my aunt who is on the Committee of Rosy Stuff ropes my mother in to help get the hall set up.  The rose bouquets above are Mum’s work.  I think she’s done a stellar job.

Every year it’s a bit iffy with the weather.  This year we’ve had the worst spring gales – hot, dry winds that rip everything off the bush or tree.  I’m amazed that we’ve got roses to show you at all!

This divine pedestal was enormous.  It’s hard to show you the scale of some of these designs, but this particular one was a mass of every sort of flowers.  The smell in the hall was AMAZING.

There were many, many more displays but I only took so many photos.  The hall was fairly teeming with people who kept on getting in my way.  I thought I did well not to include myself in the mirror above!

I love this purple one.  I’ve always loved purple flowers – lavenders are my favourite.  Sadly they are also my daughters’ favourites and they pick their little posies often, which means I rarely have any lavender flowers left on the bush.

We have about thirty rose bushes in our garden.  Funny story really – my husband and I have had some ding-dong arguments about rose bushes, or more succinctly the way he prunes them (and let it be known that I’m not allowed to prune them).  We have lost more than one rose bush because of his pruning, which he flatly denies.  When we moved into this house I put my foot down and decided NO ROSES – we argue too much about them.  Then the two little people grew into such rose lovers I decided we would have a large amount of them, and surely he couldn’t possibly kill that many rose bushes? 

So far so good.  He’s taken lessons and the bushes are doing beautifully.  And the girls have a mass of roses to choose from when they make their little posies.

I think some of these photos look like they are taken from some old painting or tapestry somewhere.  Don’t you think?

The show stopper of the event was this meticulously presented carpet of roses.  I don’t know how big it is, you can use the people as a size guide.  But I do know that it took the volunteers eight hours to complete.  It was amazing.  Just truly wonderful.  And such a shame that it had to be taken down at the end of the show.  Kind of like the Buddhist sand pictures.  Made for the joy of making them.

Here’s a close up of the design.  Amazing. 

So that’s my little show for you today.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Next week I’ll bring lots of photos of the quilt show, including my lovely, LOVELY quilt that I AM GOING TO WIN VIEWERS CHOICE WITH, ok?

Positive thinking, everyone!

Till later on, happy quilting,

Suzie