Rose for Mother's Day (Herb of the Year)

With this being Mother's Day I decided to make it the start of Rose week!

This year the Herb of the Year, as determined by the International Herb Society, is Rose.  I have been working on a post for the herb of the year and realized I have so much information that I could do a week of posts on Roses and their uses as an herb, so I decided to start this week of homage on Mother's Day.

If you are getting last minute roses for Mom, remember this symbolism (it works great on Valentine's Day too!)

Red Roses Symbolize: love and remembrance
White Roses : purity
Pink Roses: happiness
Peach Roses: passion 
Yellow Roses: infidelity

I always thought that last was too bad because my mother in law loves yellow roses and as family members we get them for her regularly.  They are still uniquely lovely.

“Rose in your tea will bring you love.”

  ~Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, Rose Recipes from Olden Times (published 1939)

The Rose Garden in 2011 at Cantigny in Wheaton, Illinois

Looking at a book like Rose Recipes from Olden Times, you get a feel for why the International Herb Society choose rose as the Herb of the Year. for 2012.  As a symbol for love and passion it has also been used medicinally and as decoration

Here are just a few possibilities:

·         Decoration for tables and banquet floors;

·         An aphrodisiac

·         To combat drunkenness

·         for remembrance when planted at grave sites, (red for lovers, white for purity of young women)

·         when used in the Church representative of the blood and wounds of Christ

·         Rose Beads used in the making of rosaries

·         Rose Essential Oil used in cosmetics

·         Perfumes

·         An aid for depression

·         To care for sensitive skin

·         To combat insomnia.

Another old book, this one from 1606 gives a recipe for a sweet bag whose scent will instill sleep.

“Take drie Rose leaves, keep them close in a glass which will keep them sweet, then take powder of Mints, powder of cloves in a grosse powder. Put the same to the Rose leaves, then put all these together in a bag, and take that to bed with you, and it will cause you to sleepe, and it is good to smell unto at other times. “

~Ram's Little Dodoen, 1606

If the scent is what you adore, then I suggest trying one of these three old-fashioned ways to capture that glorious fragrance of roses for use inside your home.  These are written so you can actually understand. 

Rose Oil
Make your own delightful rose massage oil with this simple recipe. Pack 4 cups of fresh scented rose petals into a glass jar. Cover with 1 cup almond oil and let stand for two days. Strain the oil into another jar, pressing the oil from the petals. Discard the petals. Repack the jar with fresh petals, and pour the scented oil over it. Repeat several times, until the fragrance is has reached the desired intensity.

Cosmetic Rose Water
Put 2 cups of scented rose petals into a non-reactive saucepan. Add 4 cups of distilled water, and simmer over low heat until the liquid is reduced by about half. Cool. Strain and discard the petals. If you.d like a stronger scent, repeat, using fresh petals and enough water to make 4 cups. Keep in a spray bottle to use on your hair and skin—even nicer when it's cooled in the refrigerator.

Rose Sugar
Make this fragrant sugar to sprinkle over strawberries and add to herbal tea. Bruise ½ cup clean, scented rose petals (use a mortar or a rolling pin). Stir petals into 1 cup granulated sugar and store in a lidded container for 3 weeks. Sift the sugar from the petals. Use immediately or store in a clean, dry container.

Come back each day this week for more on the uses, growing techniques and history of Roses.

Cantigny Garden Ideas (two)

When Hubby and I traveled to Wheaton to enjoy the gardens at Cantigny (see yesterday's post for more pics) we had time to view the Idea Garden and the Rose Garden.  I will have to make another trip to see the woodland plants and the formal gardens.

One of the things I like about Cantigny is that they share gardening ideas and have garden programs, etc.  I actually lectured in the Idea Garden some years ago.

This time in addition to the plants I paid attention to the other things shared like Composting.



This is bin one of the three bin system

The final two bins

This compost system uses three bins where you put items in, don't really do much turning, and let them move through decomposition to create new soil.  This is the method I use, but my bins are not as nicely made as i use just chicken wire.  then I pull the wire away when it has broken down and can be used, using the wire to create another "fresh" bin.

I like these rolling composters as you can make compost in record time and it is kind fun to roll it.

While I was there I also looked at their rain barrel.  It was liked up with a diverter board on the potting shed.  I liked this because I do not intend to have down spouts on my shade either.

I was also fascinated with trellises.  They had a premade one of metal with a tea cup vine.

And a natural one made out of branches that I thought would be perfect for growing hops.  Hops being such a fast grower would turn something like this into a shading reading nook in just a few weeks.

Always on the look out for a new way to mark my plants and create paths I latched onto these concrete ideas.  Since I recently learned how to make tuffa and concrete I was fascinated with the idea of making a weather resistant marker I could put plants around.

There was also a leaf shape marker that caught my eye too!

Then we spent some time with the roses.

My mother-in-law loves yellow roses, so I took these.

As I leave you with a final picture of the roses and the trellis that lines the garden, I think perhaps you might like a rose tea as I did when I got home.  the backyard Patch makes two wonderful rose based herb teas (Rose Blush and Rosy Bite) and two black teas with rose petals in them -- Garden Gait and Elmhurst Garden Walk.  All four are available on the website.

Cantigny Garden Ideas

Recently the Hubby and I were out enjoying the weather.  Our weather this summer has consisted of monsoon rains, hotter than comfortable humid days or colder than seasonable weather just about all summer, so when a day presents itself as warm, but not hot and sunny we head out to enjoy the out of doors.  Our travels took us to Cantigny Park (that's Can-tea-knee) in Wheaton, Illinois.  I like to stop there to look at the roses, formal gardens and herbs and my husband likes to enjoy the Tank Garden.  This place has something for men and women!

The Idea Garden was where I spent most of my visit this time.  I've been feeling uncreative about gardens recently.  Since moving to an apartment, my 3/4 acre herb garden has become a production garden with everything in rows for best abundance and accessibility, I have not designed a "pretty" garden space in several years.  Missing this, I decided to take a look at their ideas and see if that might cause me to drag out the garden design book once again.

I liked both the ideas presented here in this space.  The Wheelbarrow "dumping" the flowering plants and the Trellis.  See the teacups.  They are growing Teacup Vine on this trellis. 

I think in my own space I would use more cascading plants in the wheelbarrow so it looked like plants were falling out of the sides as well as the front.  Maybe a nasturtium or a prostrate rosemary or even a low growing mint like Cuban Mint or Pennyroyal.

The possibility of making a walkway with thyme or chamomile as the main plant has always been part of my design.  I liked the idea here of using lattice brick laid on its side in the ground because you could put in just a single plant.  It would make winter kill so much easier to fix in the spring rather than having to fill in a square of plants where some are mature and others are young.

I have always been a purist and a perfectionist, so this little garden plot they created with Yarrow and some red foliage plant I did not recognize (a little help here?) is hard for me to design on my own, but seeing the combination of yellow and red here I was captivated.

 I love all things thyme and at first I thought this was a thyme bed from a distance, but then I realized it was Corsican Mint surrounded by a variegated grass.  I liked it so much I got out the sketch pad to jot down the dimensions.  It was a bed of a perfect square 4 feet on each side.  There are slabs of stone that are well hidden too.

They also had some general ideas for groupings.  They had a scent garden with spaces for each of the five senses.  I might have chosen different plants and in fact I started to sketch out my own senses garden in the car on the drive home.  They also had a Children's garden filled with colorful and playful plants as well as those that encourage touching.

I also found a couple amusing ideas for edging and plant patterns.


This one is wine bottles pressed into the ground

A salvia tic tac toe board!

Farm implement filled with Hen & Chicks

Now I also obtained ideas for water features, markers, composting and water conservation too, but I will share those with you tomorrow.

We could not leave without looking at the roses which were just at peak in most cases.  This is a water fountain with slate edging surrounded by different shades of red roses.  The gray slate was a stunning backdrop for the reds and yellow foliage plants.  I guess they were on a yellow and red kick this year!

And no trip to Cantigny would be complete without a stroll through the tank garden!  The promise of this was what made him linger long enough for me to take all these pictures.

I shared more ideas from Cantigny here.

If you want to learn more about the gardens, mansion and military museum which are all part of the 500 Cantigny Park (former estate of Robert McCormick), check out this link http://www.cantigny.org/.