June is always a whirlwind for me now. Ever since I became Rosarian at Elizabeth Park, each year there seem to be more and more garden tours to take people on. When I became mistress of this lovely Victorian/Edwardian garden, I decided I would dress the part on these informative garden walks, and people just seem to love it. Roses are so beautiful, and June is their month. People seem to be drawn to our lovely rose garden when she is in her full glory.

I love roses, but I also love people and I always meet the nicest folks in the garden. One day, a couple weeks ago, I had a tour of about 50 people in the garden including a group of five Dominican Sisters who came from southern Connecticut. They were lovely. And they were chock-full of questions! They had taken their school kids to Washington, D.C. for their school trip and had been gifted five rose bushes in their travels. They found out about Elizabeth Park at ctrose.org, the CT Rose Society website.

June Roses

We were finishing our garden walk with a visit to the ‘Julia Child’ rosebed, and one of them said she just loved that rose and wondered where she could get one. ‘Julia Child,’ a Week’s Rose, is a gorgeous yellow floribunda. She is very fragrant and has really good disease resistance. I looked at this smiling Sister and asked her what her name was, and it turned out she was the Mother Superior of the group! I told them I was growing roses in pots in the driveway at home as a rose society fundraiser, and asked them if they would like to follow me home. The answer was yes, so after they had their picnic in the park, they came home with me, met my kitties, checked out my gardens, and had ginger cookies and lemonade on our screened-in porch.

They went home with cuttings from my grandmother’s rosary plant (ceropegia woodii), some fresh-cut pink peonies, and two rose bushes. It was a really special June summer day! My new little Sisters came to the park again a week later for CT Rose Society’s 30th Annual Rose Show, and everyone fell in love with them. We sent them home with a bunch of beautiful roses from the show, and I think I’ll see them again this Fall when they bring their students for a garden tour.

Rose Anniversary

My husband, Bob, and I just had our 25th Anniversary celebration at the park on Sunday. Our real anniversary is not until August, but I wanted to have it when the arches were in bloom. It was such a special treat to look around at the 100 or so folks that attended and know that we loved all of them! We had a party in the Pond House Garden Room, and a garden tour for those folks that wanted to follow along and learn about the history of our beautiful piece of property that has a life of its own. It was a lovely day, a pink day, with all 74 arches in full bloom. It was a magical day for a celebration, and a perfect day for all.