Memory in bloom

Rizzoli's recent publication, Roses in the Garden by photographer and author Ngọc Minh Ngo, offers more than glossy imagery and an elegant narrative — it's an invitation to let the wild in, to tend with heart and to see roses as keepers of time

- text HEIDI BERTISH photographs NGOC MINH NGO

I must confess to approaching Roses in the Garden with measured curiosity. Could any tome truly render the rose, 'Queen of Fowers', with centuries of poetic weight worthy of such acclaim? Yet, Ngoc Minh Ngo achieves something rare. This is not merely a coffee table compendium of pretty petals, but a meditative journey through places- and history, where roses speak of memory, romance, even grief and the slow passage of time.