A Rose By Any Name

My rose-covered arbor

I went to a spectacular garden tour over the weekend. It was a feast for the senses: masses of old-fashioned hydrangeas, lavish displays of perfumed roses, pergolas covered in vines, neatly trimmed boxwood hedges, and stately garden ornaments and fountains. There were sights, smells, sounds and textures to enjoy. Spending the day walking through beautiful gardens is a spirit-lifting experience. As Keats wrote, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." The beauty we saw over the weekend was inspiring and will stay with us forever. Ultimately a garden tour is a personal experience and each person takes away something different and uses it in their own special way. I found myself drawn to the pergolas and arbors clad in roses and vines.  

  

I came home and thought about my own small garden. It has been growing for three years. Some plants have thrived, others have not. As every gardener knows, a garden is a series of trials and errors. Vita Sackville-West wrote: "The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied." But planting it and watching it grow is one of the joys of life. One part of the garden that has finally taken hold are the climbing roses on the arbor. Each year at about this time they come into bloom and turn this small part of the garden into an enchanted place. The two roses that have happily merged together and bloom at the same time each year are Cecile Brunner and Pierre de Ronsard, also known as Eden. Even their names are enchanting and I discovered that I had the perfect book to find out how they got them.  

I have always been curious about the names of roses -- many of them are so beautiful and romantic-sounding. A Rose by Any Name tells the fascinating history behind rose names. Maiden's Blush, Jardins De Bagatelle, York and Lancaster, Constance Spry, and Apothecary's Rose are just a few of the names explored in this book. The stories about roses are endless. Did you know that roses in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were mainly raised for medicinal purposes; that Empress Josephine did away with stuffy botanical names and championed rose names that were romantic, flirty and personal; and that English poets such as Keats, Spencer and Shakespeare loved the Eglantine rose so much that they frequently mentioned it in their poetry and plays?  

  I decided to do a little research on the origin of the roses on my arbor 

Cecile Brunner rose

Cecile Brunner, also known as the Sweetheart Rose, was a French-bred rose that entered horticultural history in 1881 under the formal name of Mademoiselle Cecile Brunner. "Mademoiselle Cecile," born in 1879, was the daughter of Ulrich Brunner, a rose-grower from Lausanne, Switzerland. Cecile Brunner is a fabulous climbing rose with small, pink flowers. It blooms profusely throughout the summer. 

Pierre de Ronsard (Eden) rose, on the right

The rose that I have always known as Eden was originally named Pierre de Ronsard. It seems that only in the United States is this pink and white French climber called Eden. 

Pierre de Ronsard (Eden) rose 

 Its namesake Pierre de Ronsard was a sixteenth-century French poet who wrote a sonnet called Roses. In the sonnet roses symbolize fleeting amours. Mary, Queen of Scots was one of the poet's greatest admirers. This rose is another wonderful climber. The dark pink flowers are tinged in creamy white and are full and beautiful. 

If you love roses and are interested in the history behind their names, be sure to get this book. The stories are far from dry and actually read like chapters in a romance novel. There are tales of tragedy, mystery, and scandal. The story about Empress Josephine and her obsession with roses is one of my favorites. The book is a great read and you will devour it from cover cover. It is filled with all kinds of delights, including a recipe for rose water.

 Rose Water

You will need four cups of loosely packed fresh rose petals (not sprayed with pesticide), preferably picked early in the morning when the flowers are just opening. Among old garden roses, those with red and deep pink flowers tend to have the strongest perfume.

Place two cups of petals in a three-quart saucepan. Reserve remaining two cups petals in a large heatproof bowl. Boil approximately two quarts water. Pour enough over petals in saucepan to cover. Cover pan tightly with lid or aluminum foil and let steep for 15 minutes. Do not heat.

Place a strainer over the bowl of reserved fresh petals. Pour liquid from saucepan through a fine-meshed strainer onto fresh petals. Cover bowl. Discard first batch of steeped petals.

After contents of bowl have cooled, pour liquid through strainer into a glass or jar. Use the rose water immediately or refrigerate for up to two weeks. 

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By the way, the wonderful garden writer Beverley Nichols wrote:

"... a garden is a place for shaping a little of world of your own according to your heart's desire."

I love this quote because it is true for anyone who loves their garden and is also an encouragement for anyone who is thinking of planting one. 

The Diary of an Ordinary Life

I cannot resist a good book list. You know the kind... tips on what to read from friends, writers, journalists, bloggers, you name it -- I am interested in the books that other people love. After all, I am always looking for something good to read. I file the lists away in notebooks or my memory (not always the Most reliable source) and eventually obtain the books. But my favorite source for book suggestions comes from interviews with writers. The New York Times Sunday Book Review  features an interview with a writer each week called "By The Book." Other newspapers and magazines do the same. The interviewer inevitably asks the following questions: what book is on your night stand right now, which book made you want to become a writer, do you prefer books that make you laugh or cry, which book do you return to over and over, which book has taught you important life lessons, and which book do you read simply because you love it and it makes you smile.

One book that keeps cropping up in these interviews (especially in answer to the last question) is The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield. After hearing about it for so many years, I finally read it and am so happy that I did. This book is utterly charming and laugh-out-loud funny. It is one of those books that takes you by surprise. It sort of sneaks up on you and wins you over when you are not looking.

And so you might ask, what exactly is "The Diary of a Provincial Lady"? Many people today are unfamiliar with it. But when it was published in the 1930's, this book was very popular. It seemed to hit a nerve with many people who thought it sounded very much like their own lives. "The Diary of a Provincial Lady" is a fictional diary, a novel written in the form of a journal that covers the course of one year. The "lady" in question, who is never named, is a middle-class English woman with two children and a husband living in a country village in England during the 1930's. She is married to the remote and incommunicable Robert and has two adolescent children, a son named Robin and a daughter named Vicky, whom she adores. Her husband is the land agent to the local noble family, represented by the high-handed and superior-acting Lady Boxe. She has the irritating habit of just dropping in and always managing to make our "lady" feel inadequate. The other inhabitants of the  house are the French governess, Mademoiselle; the parlor maid, Ethel; and the cook.

The heroine writes a daily journal of her domestic life and covers topics such as incompetent servants, the interminable visits of the vicar's wife, the village fundraisers of which she always seems to be the chair, keeping the peace between her disciplinarian husband and her spirited children, an incorrigible French governess, lack of hot water, a house that is never warm enough, and a perpetual shortage of money. She is insecure about her looks and her clothes, aspiring to but never quite succeeding in being chic. She has a dear friend Rose, the godmother to her children, who is widowed, childless and lives in London. Occasionally she goes to visit Rose and get a taste of her friend's glamorous and artistic life. These visits cause the heroine to write in her diary that she almost envies her widowed and childless friend, realizing with horror after reading what she has written the flawed nature of her thinking.

And this is where the humor of the book comes in. Although her diary entries record the quotidian events of her days and reflect the relentlessly domestic nature of her life, they also include biting and hilariously funny parenthetical asides that reflect her true feelings. She desperately wants to be known as a nice person and absolutely lives to keep the peace all around her, but she expresses subversive opinions and insightful observations about her household and village life. The contrast between her longing to please and the critiques displayed in her diary is where the comedy of the book exists. These parenthetical comments which usually begin with "Mem:" or "Query," are a humorous trope throughout the diary that allow the provincial lady a way to express her real feelings.

Many of the funniest diary entries involve the heroine's interactions her husband Robert, Lady Boxe, and the servants:

Here are a few examples:

December 11th. -- Robert, still harping on topic of yesterday's breakfast, says suddenly Why Not a Ham? to which I reply austerely that a ham is on order, but will not appear until arrival of R.'s brother William and his wife, for Christmas visit.  Robert, with every manifestation of horror, says Are William and Angela coming to us for Christmas?  This attitude absurd, as invitation was given months ago, at Robert's own suggestion.
(Query here becomes unavoidable: Does not a misplaced optimism exist, common to all mankind, leading on to false conviction that social engagements, if dated sufficiently far ahead, will never really materialize?)

December 16th. -- Very stormy weather, floods out and many trees prostrated at inconvenient angles.  Call from Lady Boxe, who says that she is off to the South of France next week, as she Must have Sunshine.  She asks Why I do not go there too, and likens me to a piece of chewed string, which I feel to be entirely inappropriate and rather offensive figure of speech, though perhaps kindly meant.
Why not just pop into the train, enquires Lady B., pop across to France, and pop out into Blue Sky, Blue Sea, and Summer Sun?  Could make perfectly comprehensive reply to this, but do not do so, question of expense having evidently not crossed Lady B.'s horizon.  (Mem.: Interesting subject for debate at Women's Institute, perhaps:  That Imagination is incompatible with Inherited Wealth.  On second thought, though, fear this has a socialistic trend.)
Reply to Lady B. with insincere professions of liking England very much even in the Winter.  She begs me not to let myself become parochially-minded.

March 4th. -- Ethel, as I anticipated, gives notice.  Cook says this is so unsettling, that she thinks she had better go too.  Despair invades me.  Write five letters to Registry Offices.

March 8th. -- Cook relents, so far as to say that she will stay until I am suited.  Feel inclined to answer that, in that case, she had better make up her mind to a lifetime spent together -- but naturally refrain.  Spend exhausting day in Plymouth chasing mythical house-parlourmaids.  Meet Lady B., who says the servant difficulty, in reality, is non-existent.  She has NO trouble.  It is a question of knowing how to treat them.  Firmness, she says, but at the same time one must be human.  Am I human? she asks.  Do I understand that they want occasional diversion, just as I do myself?  I lose my head and reply NO, that it is my custom to keep my servants chained up in the cellar when their work is done.  This flight of satire rather spoilt by Lady B. laughing heartily, and saying that I am always so amusing." 

January 20th. -- Take Robin, now completely restored, back to school.  I ask the Headmaster what he thinks of his progress.  The Headmaster answers that the New Buildings will be finished before Easter, and that their numbers are increasing so rapidly that he will probably add on a New Wing next term, and perhaps I saw a letter of his in the Times replying to Dr. Cyril Norwood?  Make mental note to the effect that Headmasters are a race apart, and that if parents would remember this, much time could be saved.
Robin and I say good-bye with hideous brightness, and I cry all the way back to the station.

January 22. -- Robert startles me at breakfast by asking if my cold -- which he has hitherto ignored -- is better.  I reply that it is has gone.  Then why, he asks, do I look like that?  Refrain from asking like what, as I know only too well. Feel that life is wholly unendurable, and decide madly to get a new hat.
Customary painful situation between Bank and myself necessitates expedient, also customary, of pawning great-aunt's diamond ring, which I do, under usual conditions, and am greeted as old friend by Plymouth pawnbroker, who says facetiously, And what name will it be THIS time?

One of the most endearing characteristic of the heroine is that she has literary aspirations. She regularly submits essays and stories to literary competitions in her favorite magazines and frequently wins honorable mention if not the actual award. In addition to being literary, she is also very funny. She never complains or feels sorry for herself. She writes about her life in a dry and English way with a great deal of wit. Although she mostly leaves out feelings, clues to her emotions are scattered throughout and the reader can figure out what kind of person the provincial lady really is.

After finishing "The Diary of a Provincial Lady," I was happy to learn that there are several sequels. This is a good thing since I am not ready to say good-bye to her. I am looking forward to reading more about the adventures and misadventures of the "lady" of the house as she ventures outside the world of her country village and (hopefully) becomes a writer.

(Mem.: if ever asked do I prefer books that make me laugh or cry, I would answer books that do both. But if forced to choose, I would say laugh.)

Garden Tour Season

Put on your garden hat and enjoy the beautiful month of May. It is garden tour season. If you live in the Los Angeles area, don't miss The Friends of Robinson Gardens Annual Benefit Garden Tour. It is a spectacular event and will give you all kinds of inspiration for your garden. Hope to see you there!

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Grey Gardens and Good Books

The film "Jane Eyre," 2011

Photo via here

A couple of weeks ago it was grey and drizzly here in Los Angeles and my thoughts turned to books such as Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and other novels set in inclement climes where the characters are always putting on the kettle and making cups of tea. Poor Jane and all those grey and rainy days she endured. But she also enjoyed sunshine and flower-filled days when she was falling in love with Mr. Rochester. 

My garden on a grey day

"He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, and cherry-trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant herbs. They were as fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning could make them: the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illuminated the wreathed and dewy orchard-trees and shone down the quiet walks under them."

-- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

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But back to the weather here at home. Knowing that it will be hot soon enough, I couldn't help but welcome the grey skies that day. Everything outside looked beautiful and the misty weather combined with the green of the garden was a lovely sight. The greens take on a depth and richness on this kind of a day.  

My book club was meeting that morning and the drizzly weather was a perfect setting for the occasion. It was a great day to stay inside and talk about books. Our hostess has a lovely garden with old-fashioned and romantic elements such as climbing roses and wisteria, espaliered apple trees, fragrant herbs, vine covered arbors and a fountain. It looked beautiful on this misty day. (I could picture Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester walking through it.) We decided it was too cold to eat on the patio and so we sat around the kitchen table and had a delicious lunch. Afterwards we gathered in the family room in front of a fire in the fireplace. Outside a light rain was falling and we were cozily ensconced in the warm environment our hostess had created. Everyone was very happy to be together, glancing occasionally through the window at the garden. We had a riveting discussion of a wonderful new book. 

The beautiful garden at the home of our hostess

Mary Coin by Marisa Silver is a new novel inspired by the famous 1936 Dorothea Lange photo "Migrant Mother." You know the one -- a young woman with a weathered face staring into the distance, with two children clinging to her. It was a photo that had a powerful effect on this country's attitudes towards the poor during the depression.

The novel is told through the viewpoints of three characters:  Mary Coin, a native American migrant laborer and mother of seven, the subject of the famous photo; Vera Dare, a polio-stricken photographer who takes the photo; and Walker Dodge, a present-day cultural historian who is exploring his own family's history in central California. His family was a major landowner in California and employed migrant workers. I especially loved the story of Vera Dare, the photographer. She was a woman with many disadvantages, but lived a bohemian life and pursued her artistic vision at a time when not too many women were artists. She struggled to be a good mother.

This book is about many things: art, motherhood and survival, to name just a few. It is about the affect that a monumentally famous photograph can have on the lives of the subject and the photographer. For me, the most powerful feature of the book is Marisa Silver's lyrical prose and the way it captures the essence of the migrant movement. I was reminded of the way I felt when I first read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The plight of the poor during the Depression is rendered by Marisa Silver in a way that goes straight to the heart. Dorothea Lange's photo and Marisa Silver's words both paint a powerful portrait of an unforgettable time in American history. You don't want to miss this book. 

Grey skies, gardens, good books -- they all came together for an inspiring and magical day. 

Thanks to Flowers and Stripes for reminding me of the quote from "Jane Eyre"

Call The Midwife

Have you been watching the wonderful show Call The Midwife that airs Sunday nights on PBS?  I am crazy about it and each time it opens with Vanessa Redgrave's voice narrating the story, I get a little emotional. Most episodes I am in tears by the end. Last week's was especially poignant as it juxtaposed a story about the general good health of babies born in the fifties with the issue of the unavailability of birth control and women having as many as 10 children while living in poverty.

The midwives, along with the nuns of Nonnatus House, provide free and safe maternity care to the impoverished women living in London in the 1950's. They deliver babies among the slums and dockyards of London's East End. They live along side the nuns at the convent and the relationships between the nuns and these modern girls are the heart of the show. They watch out for and respect each other, learning precious life lessons along the way. Their meals together around the big table in the convent's kitchen is a highlight of the show. As is the vision of the girls and the nuns making their rounds on bicycles wearing their prim uniforms with red cardigans and nurse's caps.

I recently read that writer and producer Heidi Thomas almost passed on this project, but after reading Jennifer Worth's memoirs, upon which the show is based, she was powerfully moved by the stories of the midwives, nuns, young women and mothers all living together in this part of London and the problems they all faced. She realized that the universal theme of childbirth with its inherent dangers as well as joys would be a powerful one and make fascinating viewing. She was right.

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If you want to be further immersed in this era of London during the 1950's, be sure to watch The  Bletchley Circle that is currently airing as part of Masterpiece Theatre. (Have you noticed the high quality of so many of the dramas on television right now? There seems to always be something good to watch.) The lead characters are four women who worked together during WW II in the espionage department of the government cracking enemy codes. After the war, they turn their analytical skills into solving murder mysteries in London in 1952. This show is fabulous!

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And if you would like to round out your picture of London in the fifties even more, throw in a Barbara Pym novel. I am happily rereading my favorite Excellent Women and adoring the story of the central character Mildred Lathbury and all her adventures in the little world she inhabits in London at this time. A clergyman's daughter and a spinster living in London, her life is shaken up by her glamorous new neighbors and unexpected developments for the vicar next door. She tells the story with humor and insight. Her world may be small, but her observations about human nature are universal. 

A Rose-Covered House

Where does your mind wander when you see an image? If you are like me and enjoy a certain kind of novel or mystery set in the English countryside, then you probably swoon at the sight of rose-covered houses. Is there anything more romantic? It is a sight that evokes the enchantment of a fairy tale. Remember the Madeline stories? "In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines..." And it conjures up some of my favorite books and literary characters.   

I can picture a heroine from Henry James, Isabel Archer perhaps, peering through these windows. 

 And behind this window I can imagine characters from Jane Austen's novels -- maybe the Dashwood or the Bennet sisters. Having been forced out of their manor house, they are living in reduced circumstances and residing in a cottage, though a very charming one at that.

This could be the ramshackle castle where the young heroine of I Capture the Castle lived with her eccentric family, dreaming of romance and writing her diary while "sitting in the kitchen sink."

And it is easy to envision a witty Nancy Mitford heroine walking through this door at any moment
with the bucolic landscape of the Cotswolds as her backdrop.

Jane Eyre could easily have looked up and spied these scarlet climbing roses at Thornfield Hall.

 And virtuous May Welland, Newland Archer's fiance in The Age of Innocence, might have trembled as she imagined a not quite suitable female living behind these walls.

This could have been the window through which Miss Mapp first spied her rival Lucia in the Mapp and Lucia  books by E. F. Benson. 

Photo by Kimberly Wold

And Margaret Schlegel of E.M. Forster's Howards End could have gazed up at this rose-covered house and fallen in love with it.

We all have these Proustian moments when we see an image and are taken on a little journey into the past. Rose-covered houses remind me of my trip to the Cotswolds that I took a few years ago. The sight of them also takes me back to some of my favorite books set in the English countryside. Images from travel and books can stay with us forever. We file them away in our memory bank and don't even realize they are there until something sparks a remembrance. And then we are off...

Photos via Pinterest

Audrey in Rome

Audrey Hepburn on the terrace of the Hotel Hassler, in Rome, with the telegram announcing her New York Film Critics best-actress award for "The Nun's Story," 1960 

If you haven't already gotten a copy, you need to run out right now and pick up the May issue of Vanity Fair to see these exquisite photos of Audrey Hepburn in Rome and read the fascinating article about her years in The Eternal City. Her son Luca Dotti recalls his mother's love affair with Rome; she lived there for more than 20 years. He includes intimate photographs that have never been seen before from his new book Audrey in Rome.  He obtained many of them from the Reporters Association archives (much to his surprise, it was a rich repository of candid photos of his mother); they capture her day-to-day life on the streets of Rome and, as Luca says, they never caught her off guard. This was because she always exhibited impeccable composure that was developed from her training in classical ballet and (full disclosure) many of the photographers were her good friends.

Her always chic style, simple and classic, is evident in these photos. And yet, Dotti writes that his mother never thought she was beautiful. He also remembers an inner sadness that came from the war years when she was hungry and hiding from the Nazis in occupied Holland. But he adds that there was also "this fantastic will and enthusiasm. Because after all that sorrow everything was a discovery. When she talked about her career she always said that she was lucky and it was like winning the lottery." Luca Dotti tells a fascinating story of his mother's years living in the Italian capital and the photos capture the fashions and style of the 1950's through the 1970's with beautiful Rome as a backdrop.    

At a cafe in Piazza Navona, 1955
Love the basket purse!

On the Piazza Trinita dei Monti, 1960

With Gregory Peck in a scene from "Roman Holiday," 1953

With her first husband, Mel Ferrer, in the Piazza Guglielmo Marconi, circa 1960

In "Roman Holiday," 1953

 I cannot wait to get a copy of Audrey in Rome by Luca Dotti. It would make a perfect Mother's Day gift.

Photos via here