Urban Rose Garden

Aside from enjoying roses in the garden for obvious reasons, I also love to harvest fresh blooms for culinary purposes including floral tisanes. During the growing season this is done easily by taking a stroll through one of my rose beds to see which plants might have a spare flower or two for the taking. During the off season however this is a little tougher, and this brings me to one of my favorite winter past times. Along with going over the David Austin catalogue in addition with various seed catalogues (and quite honestly whatever other garden inspiration I can get my hands on) I also enjoy perusing rose based or inspired products including soaps and lotions, artwork, and of course dried rose buds or petals. The trouble with the later has always been finding a reputable source to purchase from at an affordable price. I am pretty sure that I have tried every rose based tea on the market, some of them I enjoy and others not so much. I usually end up adding rose water to...

Winter can be a bleak time of year in the northeast and I must admit that for a lifelong New Englander I am not fond of the cold at all. This means that rather than skiing, snowshoeing, or participating in any of the other outdoors activities that require enduring the cold I am much more likely to be found inside by the fire place looking through seed catalogues or David Austin's latest "book of roses." By February however I am feeling a bit of cabin fever and we are usually plotting our next adventure. Also being stuck indoors with so much cold outside usually inspires big dreams of what the garden will bring this current season, and so the two will usually marry into some type of garden experience, whether its the Boston Flower show in March or hunting for indoor plants or seed starting goodies early. This year i have planned to experience the many gems (some hidden and others not so much) throughout New England, and by gems I mean rose gardens. Our travels thi...