Trisha's Meanderings: On Roses, Beauty & the French Way
While gardens on Monaro lie under a blanket of snow, here in far away France it's all about roses.
Thirty years ago, the Mayor of the village of Camon — tucked into the Ariège at the foothills of the Pyrenees — gave every homeowner a climbing rose. This coming weekend, thousands of people will fill the village to celebrate the Camon Rose Festival. In the weeks leading up to it, you'll find people wandering the cobbled lanes, stopping to photograph, breathe in the fragrance, read the names, and slowly absorb the beauty of old shuttered buildings draped in superbly flowering roses.
PRUNE WITH LE SAC
Roses, like everything else, come in and out of fashion. When I first started gardening it was all about old-fashioned roses — and I only wish I could learn French verbs the way I once knew every impossible name of every heritage variety.
But how to choose a favourite? Impossible.
- For climbing verandah posts or growing over rose arches (thornless varieties): Zéphirine Drouhin, Banksia varieties, Veilchenblau and Mme Plantier.
- For growing over garages, fences or outbuildings (thorns not a problem): New Dawn, Wedding Day, Albertine and Brunonii.
- For hedging (perpetual flowering): Stanwell Perpetual and the Rugosa roses.
- A knockout single climber, flowering all season, stunning in a vase: Nancy Hayward.
- Best red rose for fragrance and beauty: Papa Meilland.
- Best pale pink for fragrance, a long flowering period and near-thornlessness: Mme Alfred Carrière.
- For lush, peony-shaped blooms: Explore the David Austin range — you won't be disappointed.
PRUNE WITH LE SAC
To think I thought I was over roses. Being here has turned that supposition to dust. It is impossible to walk past the roses festooning these old stone houses without sinking your nose in to soak up the fragrance.
Strangely, roses may be the one thing the French allow themselves to overstate. Their gardens are otherwise calm, green and deeply understated — but almost always with one standout feature. This morning, walking to the markets, we were stopped in our tracks by a single, extraordinary clump of peonies in a small village garden. Nothing else was needed. So powerful, the impact.
For what is more perfect and beguiling than a full-blown peony in bloom? They may flower for only a blink — but that moment is worth a year in the waiting.
In France, it is always, entirely, about beauty.
Which is why Le Sac feels so at home here. Le Sac is French in name and in its very essence — born from the belief that the things we use every day, the practical things, can and should be beautiful.
PRUNE WITH LE SAC
Beauty in France is not decoration. It belongs in everyday life, rooted deep in history, food, gardens, architecture and fashion. There is a French phrase — le sens du beau — the instinct for beauty. It is a belief that beauty improves the quality of life and elevates the spirit. That a beautiful environment reflects a cultivated society.
How much this aligns with those of us who garden. We spend all day working away, hands in the soil — and the reward is always far greater than the effort.
Trisha xx
*Subscribe to our newsletter and have Trisha’s Monthly Meanderings delivered gently to your inbox
