I am so delighted to have received an invitation to the private view of the artist Penny White's extraordinary flower paintings at the John Martin Gallery in Albermarle Street, London this evening.

Penny White has organised this exhibition herself in order to raise money for the wonderful Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres which are totally reliant on private funding.
John Martin has gifted his gallery space in Mayfair for the exhibition and Penny will be donating the first £5000 of sales and thereafter half of all sales directly to the charity.

The roses in her paintings were grown on our Hampshire farm so I have sent a large bouquet of our roses and herbs over to the gallery today to help dress the space for the press and private view this evening.

Of her own work Penny says

Curiously, I do not think of myself as a 'flower painter', I am only interested in representing the flower. I try to paint the ephemeral quality of the flower, its soul, its scent, its colour, its pattern, its eroticism, that transient quality that for me is the flower.

The exhibition runs between 30th March and 10th April 2010, although it's closed for Easter between 2nd and 5th April.

Truly inspirational and worthwhile.

Simply beautiful.
Photographing roses is a joy!

Beautiful isn't it? Scented roses cascading down the candleabra...

Happy, happy Valentine's Day!

Well, we've walked miles, de-thorned thousands of roses, made many, many bouquets and arrangements and it's been a lot of hard work but we get to work with scented flowers!

A big thank you to all of our Realflowergirls and boys in our office, workshop, Selfridges and on our farms for your hard work and sunny dispositions.

Finally, a massive thank you to all of our wonderfully supportive customers.

At last our rose hips have turned red and we've started harvesting them on our English farm.

We've put together a vibrant, scented, seasonal collection of Autumn bouquets using the rose hips and tying them with orange, red and purple scented roses and seasonal herbs. Hope you like them!

One of my favourite ways to display our scented garden roses at home is by putting them in random vases, jam jars, perfume bottles and displaying them on a shelf, fireplace or, as in this case, my bathroom. This can also be a lovely way of displaying garden roses down the centre of rectangular tables for a garden party or wedding.
Simple pleasures!

Margaret Merril is in fine flush at the moment on our English Rose farm.

She is, in our opinion, one of the most beautiful roses that we grow in England and in terms of perfume she's unbeatable and quite unique.

Merril is the classic bridal rose, ivory not stark white, she often takes on a slight pink or peach blush to her petals depending on the weather. In bud she is a fine rose but when fully open, displaying her gold centre surrounded by flat, ivory, petals she is simply glorious.

The Real Flower Company offer Merril in hand tied bouquets, shower bouquets, bespoke wedding arrangements and as boxes of stems either mixed or with other ivory roses or on her own for brides who have friends to help make the flower arrangements.

Freshly picked from our English farm, the rose is available from June to the end of October and from our sustainable Kenyan farm throughout the Winter and Spring.

In association with The Real Flower Company and in honour of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, our friends over at Boxwish have written a lovely article featuring the top 5 fantastic floral films featuring roses.

Here are the chosen films. If you click on the links you can see the full review of the film on the Boxwish website:-
The Da Vinci Code
A rose is left behind everytime the sought after grail is moved!
Bed of Roses
A widowed man takes a shine to strong business woman, sending her roses to lift her spirits!
Youth Without Youth
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the rose is used to great effect as a metaphor for time and the cycle of life.
Beauty and the Beast
The rose is featured heavily throughout the film and the falling petals provide a clever visual reminder of the Beast's looming fate.
American Beauty
In this 1999 Oscar winning film the rose represents the forays into the sexual fantasies of frusrated office drone Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey)

Calling all men...scent is so important when sending your Valentine flowers!

Scent stirs the emotions and evokes fond memories for years to come each time the scent reappears.

We often receive correspondance from people saying that the scent of our roses brought tears (of happiness!) to their eyes when they opened the box. This is how powerfully scent is linked to memory and they often say how the scent of the roses brought back memories of their Grandparents rose garden, their wedding day or courtship.

Valentine's Day Scented Bouquet

Do you still have roses blooming in your garden now and have a lovely bud that is showing colour but hasn't started to open yet? Then you might want to try something that my Mother used to do each year (although I think she probably did it in the summer months). Simply pick and freeze them.
My Mother used to put the roses into plastic containers and put them into the deep freeze. She used to take them out to thaw on Christmas Eve and we had garden roses on the table on Christmas Day. I admit that I've never tried this myself, having access to a fresh supply of roses from our farms, but I think it's worth a try. Let me know how it goes!

It's the perfect time of year for scented garden roses and the rose paddocks on our Hampshire farm are full of wonderful roses in bud waiting to be picked.