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becks_greenthumb

New rose gardener-in search of advice

becks_greenthumb
15 years ago

Before I get in too deep, I'd like to hit you pros up for some planning advice. I've been gardening pretty intensively for about 3 years now, since I bought my house. I'm ready to take it to the next level and turn my garden primarily into a rose garden. I live on the delta in the SF Bay Area and am lucky enough to have great soil due to having a largish downtown lot only about 1/2 mile from where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers meet. In fact I routinely unearth a few fossilized clam shells each year, just to give you an idea that the soil is black, rich and made up of old river silt. I rarely have to feed any of my plants and most of what I've planted has flourished. I've approached my design so far mostly as a cottage garden with a lot of old fashioned plants. Basically, if my grandmother would have grown it, I'll plant it too. I have several hydrangeas, a large wisteria, wine grapes, a few oleander, pink pieris, arborvite, verigaed wigelia, rosemary, lavender, snowball bush, butterfly bush, bougainvillia, jasmine, a couple japanese maples, a lavender-pink crape myrtle, a weeping cherry, a flowering plum, two dwarf pears, an ever-bearing lemon, a kumquat, two dwarf oranges and I'm slowly working on a lilac hedge. Colorful, to say the least. I love it. However, design is my challenge as I tend to just put things in wherever there is room. I'd like to put in several more roses grouped around the major features: wine grapes, plum and crape myrtle. Roses I already have interspersed are: Chicago Peace, Perfect Moment, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Iceberg, Bewitched, Sterling Beauty, Mr. Lincoln, several carpet roses and an unknown yellow minature. Summers here on the delta can be very warm, but there is almost always a strong breeze so I've never had any problems with black spot or any other diseases or pests. The roses I already have bloom continually from spring through late fall. In fact, my Iceberg and Lady of Guadalupe still have blooms, though it's been quite cold and foggy for several weeks now. It's time to start really planning so I can get going on the planting. I'd like to put in anywhere up to 10 new roses, but I don't want to go over the top with color. If any of you have any tried and true favorites, must-haves or general advice, I'd happily take it.

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