Roses in My Tuscan Garden

One part of my Englishness, which will always remain, is my love of roses. My Mother adores gardens and therefore by osmoses I have learnt to appreciate gardens and always have somewhere to turn for botanical advise. The rose, however, is the flower that captured my heart.

When we moved to Le Mura in 2000 I had big ideas of creating a garden but soon learnt that I had land and the scale was rather different. I also realised I hardly needed to garden as the wildflowers created all the colour and beauty necessary. In the end I thought I would divide things into zones: wild areas, olive groves, orchard and vines, pool and an area of non-formal garden around the house. My roses somehow have managed to escape into all the zones.

The edge of the orchard is lined with antique ramblers. In May these small pink flowers lift my senses. The pool has its hot sun deck but is surrounded by trees and roses.

My real passion has been to preserve the old dog roses that I found in the land and also returning some rather hybrid Tea to their root stock, so that the roses fit in more with our semi-wild relaxed style country garden. I hope the photos say the rest.