Tea Roses, which were in their hey day between 1880 and 1910, are to a very great degree forgotten roses. With fewer petals than most old roses, they remain unsurpassed for elegance. Lusciously scented with elongated buds and drooping blooms that tend to nod, they evoke a world of lost charm.
With thoughts of the the unfurling petals of Maman Cochet and the creamy shell like blooms of Devoniensis I have posted some images of deliciously feminine interiors that, like Tea Roses, teeter on the the edge of sentimentality, but are rescued from the fate of cloying prettiness by a sure sense of design.
Hal Williamson, October 08 Home Beautiful
Adelphi Fabric, Designers Guild, photographed by James Merrell
Savigny Silks, Designers Guild, photographed by James Merrell
Paolo Moschino at Nicholas Haslam Devoniensis
I first saw Hal Williamson's beautiful interiors in a post by Habitually Chic and I felt, on reading her words, that she was a little puzzled as to why she loved the images that reminded her of the Ritz and Laduree. The answer is to be found in the elegant restraint that is so evocative.
There is quite a groundswell in the rose growing community to rescue these roses, the best remain in the warm climate of California and in New Zealand and Australia. I am reminded of a Tea Rose of quite a different colour, the great survivor, Lady Hillingdon, and of a quotation that has been quite wrongly attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, as it was Lady Alice Hillingdon who first stated, amongst a great many other controversial things, "I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall"
Lady Alice Hillingdon
and her namesake photographed by Mary Beamond
in an Adelaide Hills garden
There is quite a groundswell in the rose growing community to rescue these roses, the best remain in the warm climate of California and in New Zealand and Australia. I am reminded of a Tea Rose of quite a different colour, the great survivor, Lady Hillingdon, and of a quotation that has been quite wrongly attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, as it was Lady Alice Hillingdon who first stated, amongst a great many other controversial things, "I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall"
Lady Alice Hillingdon
and her namesake photographed by Mary Beamondin an Adelaide Hills garden
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