Took some time off to “smell the roses” and did just that. At the moment, a walk around the Padiès gardens  is like being a nose in a perfume store – sensory overload. One walks in and out of a variety of fragrances – sweet, spicy, heady, clean and airy.

I was curious as to which of the roses were most fragrant – the old varieties we found found here – or the heirloom roses we found at the Plantarium de Gaujacq where we went for hortensias many years ago (now you can buy from them online at the  Pépinière Botanique – but a visit there is far more inspiring).

The salmon rose came from Gaujacq – the pink rose on the right is a “Padiès” rose. The fragrance of the Gaujacq rose is so heady that one has to get really close to the Padiès rose to detect its perfume.

Wandering further towards the house – the perfume coming from the white rose nestled in the rosemary, another Gaujacq rose, draws one in. This rose is beside the stone table, made by Patrick Garido our stone mason and friend, where we enjoy many good meals – sitting here is a particular pleasure, we are surrounded by rosemary, marjoram, a boxwood hedge planted by denis some fifteen years ago, the volunteer fig and oak trees, the established large box and the branch of the large arbre de Judée I rescued from the builders in 1993!

Continuing the ‘rose walk’ on the upper courtyard, there’s the eglantine beside the gate (impossible to photograph), the climbing rose with small purple blooms beside terrain de pétanque, and, moving on to the steps down to the potager, the white rose with the strongest scent of them all…

The path of the champs de la vache (so named by Bas Smets and Martin Basdevant – after Jeff Thomson’s corrugated iron cow who lives there) is flanked by roses planted well before we came to Padiès. These long-neglected roses are enjoying a new life after their pruning and a heavy dose of padiès compost. The perfumes here are marvelous.

Li and Michel, wwoofers from NZ, are responsible for the lease of life the roses are enjoying – they pruned them all when when they were here this winter.

The roses should be in full bloom for the Rendez-vous aux Jardins this coming weekend (5/6/7 June).