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| Dahlia hibrida 'Hypnotica White' - Top Rosa 'Fair Bianca' and bottom Rosa 'Whinchester Cathedral' 20 August 2025 |
When I sit at my oficina accompanied on a chair next to me by either Niño or Niña I feel relaxed. I almost forget my sadness for the loss of my Rosemary. Then it all comes back as most of my scans involve either Rosemary‘s plants, like the dahlia today, or the roses remind me of her dainty and graceful ways. This is especially so when the roses are white. One of the roses, the English Rose Rosa ‘Fair Bianca’ has the scent that the English call myrrh. There was and is a rose called Rosa ‘Yorkshire Splendens’ that is the only rose with this scent that is a combination of magnolia grandiflora, pepper, medicinal and liquorice scents. Rose breeder David Austin (now dead) bred his first English Rose, Rosa ‘Constance Spry’.The other white rose in the scan is Winchester Cathedral which is also an English Rose. Unlike the old roses they resemble they are remontant. This means that they bloom from spring to fall.
The 'Constance Spry' rose is the first commercially introduced cultivar by British rose breeder David Austin, a large pink shrub rose released in 1961. Austin cross-bred the old-fashioned Gallica rose 'Belle Isis' with the modern Floribunda 'Dainty Maid' to create a rose with the desirable form and scent of old roses, though it doesn't repeat bloom. This cultivar marked the beginning of Austin's "English Roses,"
Rosa ‘Belle Isis’ a 19th century rose had Yorkshire Splendens in its past.
While English Roses and especially the white ones might look dainty they are tough. It is for this reason that these white roses are my Rosemary.
And today, like most days I was visited by small white butterflies that Rosemary adored. I decided that one way or another I was going to take a picture. This I did. While all these butterflies are not the same ones from one year to another I think that Rosemary’s spirit is in all of them.
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| The white butterfly - 29 August 2025 |
