An Enchanting Garden

Have you ever wondered how a garden worthy of Ingrid Bergman, Audrey Hepburn and/or Grace Kelly’s would look like? Are you an avid botanist who likes to give thematic to your gardens or organise them in a very precise way?

All our three enchanted ladies had flowers named after them, mainly roses. Honestly, I love rose gardens. To me, beautiful rose gardens are the result of a careful care and thoroughness. Antoine de St-Exupéry wrote it in The Little Prince; roses are capricious, fragile, and need a lot of attention in order to survive.

I don’t know much about gardening so I won’t tell you how to build your three enchanting ladies garden and what type of fertilizer you should use for each plant, but I want to discuss these flowers and see how they beautifully represent the honored actresses. I never thought I’ll be writing a gardening article, but you can expect anything related to Grace, Ingrid, and Audrey on this blog!

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Ingrid Bergman Rose

Member on the hybrid tea rose class, this flower was introduced by Poulsen Roser company in 1984. Danish rose growers Pernille and Mogens Olesen are the ones at its origin. To me, this large red cardinal flower honors Ingrid’s name perfectly, or,  more precisely, the woman that Ingrid was. Her colour reminds us of Ingrid’s strong character and passion for life. Red is a powerful colour, made for people with ambition. Ingrid was a woman who did what seems to be right for her and for her career and, as she said, she had no regrets. That’s the spirit. The website Promesses de Fleurs also informs us that this rose is a solid one and resists diseases perfectly. Now, we know that Ingrid, unfortunately, died from cancer at the still too young age of 67, but she remained optimistic until the end and continued working ’till the very last minute. Her last film, TV movie A Woman Called Golda, was released in 1982, the same year she left us. The described “solidity” of this rose can also remind us of Ingrid’s solidity toward her “enemies” during the Rossellini-Bergman scandal. One must be strong to live such a complicated crisis. For Ingrid, it was all about love. Her daughter Isabella Rossellini was born from Ingrid and Roberto Rossellini’s union and if a rose would be named after her, I also think it should be a red one.

Gorgeous at it is, it is not surprising that the Ingrid Bergman Rose won a few awards:

• The Golden Rose of The Hague in 1987
• The Award of Garden Merit by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1993
• Gold medals at rose trials in Bellefast,
• Belfast (1985), Copenhagen (1986), and Madrid (1986)
• Seclected “World’s Favourite Rose” by the World Federation of Rose Societies in 2000

Ingrid Bergman in “Cactus Flower”

Princess of Monaco Rose (or Grace Kelly Rose)

As the website Roses Passions informs us, Grace Kelly was passionate about roses. The princess-actress said of roses ” What is so special about a rose that it seems far more than a flower? Perhaps it is the mystery it has gathered through the ages. Perhaps it is the joy that it continues to give.”

In 1984, 2 years after Grace’s tragic passing, a rosary was created in her honour in Monaco by her husband Prince Rainier III of Monaco in order two honour his wife and her love for this mythical flower. In the Princess of Monaco Rosary, you’ll find roses named after the members of the royal family: The Princess of Monaco Rose (of course), the Prince of Monaco Jubilee Rose, the Caroline of Monaco Rose, the Stephanie of Monaco Rose, and the Prince of Monaco Rose in honour of her son Albert II. There is also a statue of Grace Kelly in this garden. A rose among roses! I’ve never been there and I’ve never been to Monaco either, but it’s on my bucket list.

The Grace Kelly Rose was developed in 1981 by Marie-Louise Meilland. Just like the Ingrid Bergman rose, it belongs to the hybrid tea class. However, her tones are more delicate. Instead of an inflamed red, this rose honours pink and white. This 30 petals natural jewel seduces with a light perfume. To me, it is a rose all in elegance, just like Grace Kelly was. It also reminds us of Grace Kelly’s delicate beautify and softness. And pink is a colour that many little girls have associated to princess because of fairy tales. But if Grace Kelly was wearing this flower in her hair, it would probably go unnoticed as we would be too busy admiring the lady herself.

Tulipa Grace Kelly

Yes, a tulip also wears Grace’s name. There isn’t much information about it on the net, but we can observe a few pictures. This tulip is not like the ones we’re used to see in our flower vases at home (my parents are avid fans of tulips) because of its somehow exccentric shape. Just like Grace, it is elegant but unique. The pink colour also embellishes this flower. The breeder’s website informs us that it will be available next May 17.

Hebe Grace Kelly

Believe it or not, a Hebe plant was also named after the timeless beauty named Grace Kelly. Very different from the rose and the tulip, the Hebe Grace Kelly is a plant adorned with red-purple flowers. This cultivated plant was developed in 2007 in Cambridge New-Zealand by Stephen Burton and introduced in 2011. This plant is a more sober one than the Grace Kelly rose and tulip, which reminds us of the woman’s humble side.

Too conclude on Grace Kelly’s love for flowers, we have to mention one of her favourite activities during her year in Monaco: making pressed flowers arrangements, an underrated art. We can observe some of these collages in her book My Book of Flowers, published in 1980.

Audrey Hepburn Rose

Yes yes, I told you: all the three enchanting ladies have roses named after them. After all, it’s a glorious flower, just like they were. Like the Grace Kelly Rose, the Audrey Hepburn rose is light pink but also has discreet orange reflects. The rose was bred by Jerry F. Twomey in the United States in 1991. Like the previously mentioned rose, it belongs to the hybrid tea class. The classic beauty of this flower and its colour makes us think of Audrey’s quote “I believe in pink”, the quintessence of optimism. Or, as the Funny Face song says it: “Think Pink!” This is not a colour Audrey wore so often in her movies but when she did, it suited her very well. Pink is a delicate colour and a very feminine one just like the human flower that Audrey Hepburn was.

Audrey Hepburn Daylily

This coquette and funny looking yellow and soft-pink flower was introduced in 2004 by Kirchhoff-D. Her look reminds me of Audrey Hepburn’s child’s spirit and her ability to make us laugh and enjoy the little pleasures of life. It’s a flower without any pretentions that inspires fun and joie de vivre. Audrey was elegant like a rose but high-spirited like a daylily! Even if it is a bit crazy looking, it remains beautiful.

Audrey Hepburn Tulip

This white flower was introduced in Holland in 1990 while Audrey Hepburn was still alive. Ironically, Audrey had to eat tulip bulbs in order to survive hunger during the war when she was a young girl, but, as Sara Bibel informs us in her article 6 Lesser-Known Facts About Audrey Hepburn, she was honoured to have a flower named after her and attended the tulip dedication ceremony at her ancestral home in Holland. The article also informs us that, according to the Netherlands Flower Information Society, it was named after her “as a tribute to the actress’s career and her longtime work on behalf of UNICEF.” Tulips are a symbol of Holland and as Audrey’s mother was Dutch, it is absolutely appropriate for her daughter to have a tulip named after her. The Audrey Hepburn Tulip is a nod to her origins!

As it is revealed in Lucca Dotti’s book Audrey at Home: Memories of My Mother’s Kitchen, his mother had a great fascination for gardening and knew how to take good care of her gardens. Apparently, daffodils were among her favourite flowers. Maybe you’d like to include some in your enchanted garden. You can read more about it here.

Audrey Hepburn

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So, now that you know what to include in a Three Enchanting Ladies garden, all you need are gardening gloves, gardening tools, a bit of sun and rain, and a visit to the flower market. Or, if you can afford it, or if you are not to keen on gardening, just hire a gardener to do the job!

I hope you liked this article and that you learned more about flowers named after our Three Enchanting Ladies!

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Sources:

– “Audrey Hepburn.” High Country Roses, http://www.highcountryroses.com/audrey-hepburn. Accessed 24 March, 2018.

– Bowen, Monica. “Grace Kelly’s Pressed Flowers.” Alberti’s Window, July 3rd, 2016, http://albertis-window.com/2016/07/grace-kellys-pressed-flowers/. Accessed 24 March, 2018.

– Bibel, Sara. “6 Lesser-Known Facts About Audrey Hepburn.” Biography, May 4, 2015, https://www.biography.com/news/audrey-hepburn-facts-biography. Accessed 24 March, 2018.

– “Daily (Hemerocallis ‘Audrey Hepburn’) in the Dayilies Database.” Plants Database, https://garden.org/plants/view/35687/Daylily-Hemerocallis-Audrey-Hepburn/. Accessed 24 March, 2018.

– Evans, Miranda. “Memories of my mother, Audrey Hepburn the gardener.” The Telegraph. September 15, 2015, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardens-to-visit/memories-of-my-mother-as-a-gardener-audrey-hepburn-by-luca-dotti/. Accessed 24 March, 2018.

– “Grace Kelly: Tulipa Grace Kelly.” Fluwel, 2015, https://www.fluwel.com/tulips/all-tulips/grace-kelly.html. Accessed 24 March, 2018.
– “Hebe plant named ‘Grace Kelly’.” Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP22653P2/en. Accessed 24 March, 2018.
– “La Princesse Grace et les roses.” Roses Passion, http://rosespassion.e-monsite.com/pages/infos-histoires-de-roses/la-princesse-grace-et-les-roses.html. Accessed March 24, 2018.

– “La Roseraie Princesse Grace à Monaco.” Roses Passion, http://rosespassion.e-monsite.com/pages/infos-histoires-de-roses/la-roseraie-princesse-grace-a-monaco.html. Accessed 24 March, 2018.
– “Le Parc paysager de Fontieville et la Roseraie Princesse-Grace.” Monaco, http://www.visitmonaco.com/fr/A-voir,-A-faire/Jardins/Le-Parc-paysager-de-Fontvieille-et-la-Roseraie-Princesse-Grace. Accessed 24 March, 2018.

– “Rosa Ingrid Bergman.” Wikipedia, 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_%27Ingrid_Bergman%27. Accessed March 24, 2018.
– “Roses named after famous people.” The Smell of Roses, https://www.thesmellofroses.com/roses-named-famous-people/. Accessed 24 March, 2018. ”

– “Rosier à grandes fleurs Ingrid Bergman.” Promesse de fleurs, https://www.promessedefleurs.com/rosiers/rosiers-par-variete/rosiers-the-grandes-fleurs/rosier-a-grandes-fleurs-ingrid-bergman-r.html. Accessed 24 March, 2018.
– “Rosier Princesse de Monaco.” Meilland Richardier, https://www.meillandrichardier.com/rosier-princesse-de-monaco-r-meimagarmic.html. Accessed 24 March, 2018.