Processing Damask Rose Flowers For Rose Water and Essential Oil
Hello friends,
And welcome to 2025 on my blog. I did a bunch of stuff over the Christmas break, so in the coming weeks you'll see what I got up to crafting and gardening wise during that time. One of the things I got up to in November and December, was to harvest, and then process my own damask rose flowers.
Damask roses hail from Syria, and their flowers have been used to make rose essential oil and rose water for thousands of years, for use in both perfumes and food. In New Zealand, damask rose plants are hard to come by, and it took me a few years to get hold of two rose bushes from small, specialty rose growers. The two varieties of damask rose bushes in my back garden are Duc De Cambridge and Isapahan.
Duc De Cambridge.
Isapahan.
Damask roses only flower once in spring, and their flowering happens over the course of a month. After some research, I found a scientific paper which said that the damask rose flowers could be stored at -20˚C for a month without losing any rose essential oil, in order to collect enough rose flowers to process them by steam distillation. From mid-November to mid-December, I went out into the back garden each morning, and collected flowers from my damask rose bushes, and them stored them in our chest freezer.
When flowering finished in mid-December, I defrosted my damask rose flowers and placed them inside my Air Still pot still for distillation. After filling the still with enough water to cover the roses, I began distilling the rose essential oil and rose water.
After about twenty minutes of heating, the strong scent of rose essential oil gases began filling the kitchen. A minute after that, the combined liquid of rose essential oil and rose water began exiting the pot still.
The distilling process took about an hour, and I was left with 700 mL of combined rose essential oil and rose water afterward. The amount of rose essential oil was tiny compared to the rose water, so I decided to leave the two combined for storage. I split the resultant rose water into two 350 mL containers, and gave one to my sister, who likes to make natural products for her home.
I'm really pleased with the resulting rose water, which smells lovely, and in the coming years as my rose bushes grow, I'll get bigger harvests of rose flowers each year. My plan with the rose water this year is to use it in my cold-processed soap recipe later on this summer.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Mount Mera Botanical Dahlia Order
Hello friends,
My last dahlia order for the year, from Mount Mera Botanical in Dunedin, arrived recently. The three varieties I chose were Pink Perception, Islander, and Muchacha, and they'll be planted in our front and back gardens.
The box the dahlias arrived in was just so beautiful, that you know I just had to keep it.
All three varieties already had strong growing shoots, so I'm looking forward to seeing them growing later in spring.
And in other dahlia news, four dahlia plants, Totally Tangarine, Cafe Au Lait Twist, Misses Miley, and Arthur Hambley, have already sent up shoots above ground.
It's super stressful as I now have to make sure I protect them overnight in case there is a frost. I think it's happened because this past winter was the warmest winter for Dunedin since records began in the 1940s. It's certainly possible that other dahlias may now pop up early as well, so I need to check all my dahlias every day to see if they have sprouted too.
I've resorted to the bucket and firewood method of protecting the growing dahlias from frost, and it should be good enough until the last frost date, which hopefully is in early October.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Signs of Spring 2024
Hello friends,
Spring is just around the corner, and my garden is showing many signs of spring. I'd thought I'd share with you some photos I've taken recently.
My miniature Irises have already put on a show with their beautiful, dainty flowers.
Crocuses have also been flowering.
As are a lot of my daffodil varieties.
And finally, my deciduous shrubs and trees have started breaking their buds, and there's also blossom appearing on our fruit trees.
Spring is less than a week away, and I'm so excited for warmer and longer days. There's lots to do in the garden now, so it's time to get on with all the things, especially seed sowing.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Floret Flower Farm and Other Seeds from Emerden Flowers
Hello friends,
I was doom scrolling on Instagram a couple of weeks ago, and came across a post by Emerden Flowers announcing they were collaborating with Floret Flower Farm in the USA, and they were bringing Floret and Dawn Creek Zinnias and Dahlias into New Zealand.
Before you could blink an eye, I had zoomed over to Emerden Flowers website, and excitedly perused the pre-order links to the Zinnias and Dahlia seed mixes. I've followed Floret Flower Farm for years, and even have a couple of their books. Their book "Discovering Dahlias" is my bible when it comes to Dahlias. I was so excited, even with the very high prices of the seed packets. Now was my chance to get some seeds, and I wasn't going to miss out. I still had money budgeted for our backyard garden project, and had no problem in justifying buying 3 seed packets to hubby, along with some other seed packets from Emerden Flowers I had been wanting.
First up was choosing a Dahlia seed mix, I finally settled on choosing Floret Original Bee's Choice flower seed packet, as I want to encourage bees into my garden. Choosing two zinnia packets was more fraught with danger. After angsting over it for days leading up to when they went on sale, including spending way too much time on Instagram looking at people's photos of the various zinnia mixes, late on the Saturday night I chose Floret Original Precious Metals zinnias, and also Dawn Creek Blush zinnias, as they are colours that will fit in well in my backyard (as well as my front yard). I had also chosen a bunch of very cool Emerden flower seed packets, as some of them were on my list of plants to get for a while.
On the Sunday morning when the seed packets went on sale, I had all of the internet tabs open on the seeds I wanted, and I'd logged into Emerden Flowers website. In the minutes before 10 am I added all the Emerden Flowers into the web cart, and waited impatiently for 10 am. As soon as it hit 10 am, I reloaded the web pages for the Floret and Dawn Creek varieties I wanted, and added them to the cart. Once I was sure I got everything, I checked out, and bought it with my credit card.
It took a while before I got the confirmation email from Emerden Flowers, and then I started happy dancing.
Within a couple of days my precious seeds were delivered to my door, and it was time to fawn all over my pretty new seed packets.
The packaging for the Floret Flower Farm part of the order was stunning, and I really loved the included growing guide.
I also bought a range of Emerden flower seed varieties including pansy, larkspur, floxglove, sunflowers, cosmos, calendula, and echinacea.
I am really excited to start planting these seeds in spring, which is less than a couple of weeks away now.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Backyard Plant Removals and Planting Spring Bulbs
Hello friends,
While the garden consultant was designing a plan for our backyard, it was time to start removing plants, and taking all the resulting green waste to the local rubbish tip.
The first plants to go were the rhododendrons, camellia, and the hydrangea taking up space in the back yard. I don't like rhododendons at all, they are poisonous to native bird life who are sugar feeders. As our local area has numerous tui, bell birds, and wax eyes, I wanted all the rhododendrons gone. The camellia in the backyard also got removed because it was squishing my beloved feijoa bushes. A hydrangea was also removed because our home's previous owners planted it in the wrong place.
We were able to remove half the garden shrubs ourselves, but after my shoulder tendonitis flared up from removing shrubs and then digging up their root systems, we ended up getting our local garden contractor (who trims all our hedges) to help remove the remaining shrubs and their green waste.
He also helped us remove an old coal storage concrete bin from our back path, so we had enough space to fit in all the new council rubbish and recycling bins that had just been delivered.
I bought clearance daffodils and tulips from an online store to help fill in the spaces where the rhododendrons and other shrubs had stood. It was late in the season to buy them, so I got them on sale. It didn't take long to plant them into the ground on a warm sunny day.
After all that, the back garden was mostly a blank space, and it was just a matter of waiting for the garden plan to be ready. The garden consultant said it would be done in 2 - 3 weeks, but it ended up taking 6 weeks...
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.
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