Archives: Persephone Post

This rose, Gertrude Jekyll, is currently sitting in a David Austin pot and we are enjoying it very much. It’s actually far more like a wild rose than one might imagine from the formality of a Gertrude Jekyll garden. The colour is bright and it’s a rather blowsy rose, not at all like Gertrude Jekyll herself. (Apologies about the website malfunctions yesterday. Back to ‘normal’ now although there is no normal while we continue to be so busy that we cannot even answer the phone! Next week on the Post something funny. There is not much to laugh about at the moment so we shall do our best at least to make you smile.)

This  rose, Félicité Perpétue, is gloriously white. This is what Gardener’s World here says about it: ‘a lovely rambling rose with a vigorous growth habit and glossy, green foliage. In summer it bears masses of double, creamy pink flowers. Flowers are borne in trusses and have a delicate scent similar to primroses. Attractive orange-red hips appear in autumn. It is more tolerant of shade than other roses, and may even be grown against a north-facing wall.’ All this is true but it’s disadvantage is that it’s very dominant and although the flowers are delightful in June, some may not think it’s worth having something so, well, dominant for the rest of the year.

But if we had to choose just one rose (for a garden not a container) it would be Albertine. The name is so redolent of all things French and literary and historic (it dates from 1921), but also it is the most beautiful rose with a wonderful scent.

Who was Madame Alfred Carriere?  What was her real name?  (Funny to think that until very very recently women were referred to by their husband’s name!) Whoever she was, the rose named after her brings beauty and joy to thousands of gardens during the English summer. It’s available to buy from Gardening Express here.

What with the virus, the government’s despicable behaviour and now the appalling, devastating news from America – it is difficult to remain calm and sanguine and focus on women writers or artists or any of the usual topics that are the subject of the Post week by week. Quite apart from the huge volume of orders in the shop (more details about this in the Letter later today). The one glorious and indeed great thing in life at the moment is roses! To say that it’s a good year for them is a total understatement. Really we should be doing nothing except basking in their scent and their beauty. But then one remembers how many people are confined to small flats/apartments and don’t have access to outside space and that is deeply sobering. Well, one can dream. This week on the Post: the five best roses for those who either want to dream, get planting or get visiting and admiring (when they are allowed to). This is New Dawn from David Austin. (By the way, a rose is an excellent present and some of them do well on balconies.)

Stephen painted Mary on many occasions. This lovely painting is still for sale at Liss Llewellyn here.

Mary Adshead was born in Bloomsbury and went to Putney High School. She married Stephen Bone when she was 25. She had a productive and interesting life, cf. the rather good Wikipedia entry here. This is a 1931 self portrait.

An undated ‘portrait’ of her husband Stephen Bone by Mary Adshead: he is dressed up and probably the watercolour once had a title such as ‘the city slicker’; or perhaps he is posing for a book illustration. Not surprisingly, the painting has now been sold

The Persephone Post is late today for which apologies to people in the UK (people in the US etc. will just be getting up). But as promised, the first in a series of artistic couples: this week, Stephen Bone and Mary Adshead, seen here at work in 1934 when they were both 30. Tomorrow, Thursday and Friday: paintings by them for sale at The Modern British Art Gallery here.

Young Girl on the Grass, the Red Bodice (Mlle Isabelle Lambert) 1885 by Berthe Morisot is in the new Biannually at the end of a piece by D E Stevenson about her life. There will be no Post on Monday because, bizarrely, in the UK it’s a ‘Bank Holiday’ (in the current circumstances it should obviously have been abolished and moved to much later in the year or even next spring, but hey ho). Next week on the Post: the first of a series of married couples who were both painters.