That's cool. I sure hope someone who likes roses buys the place!

BTW-hubby and I had to do this with his parents home..they were packrats..it was an ordeal. We finally closed the estate..it took us 2 years. We still have boxes of stuff in the garage to sell!

Jackie, what a lovely find! Just in case there are any hard to find varieties, you might want to take cuttings. OR if the prospective buyers aren't rose people, put it in the contract that you may take any of the plants that you want (this was a problem for a friend, buyers claimed they loved the roses, but a week after closing, the whole kit and kaboodle was torn out and replaced by sod).

It's sad but there are many people just not interested in plants. The gardener and the garden are the same.

I visited a elderly couple's fabulous fantastic miraculous garden this morning, a wonderful priviledge to see it, but I know when they pass on, the property will be sold and subdivided and their miraculous eden will become three or four McMansions plopped on tiny lots. It's terribly sad, but it is inevitable.

Jackie, what an exciting find. I think I'd be inclined to frame it. Is the house you're selling the one you live in with the huge Le Vesuve or another house?

Sherry

But maybe someone who buys it will love the roses. I'd given up hope for my garden that I left in Alabama, but heard that the new owner loves flowers and plans to take care of everything.

Maybe the same will happen for you, too. I hope so.

Thanks for the good advice. Luckily, the house that will be for sale is not the old one we live in that has the Le Vesuve, but the one my parents-in-law built in 1949 (after my father- in- law moved out of our old house, where he grew up). I have no particular emotional attachment to the roses, as all but 4 of them were planted in the last 15 years. However, there are some old roses I don't have, so maybe I will take cuttings from them.

We have been focusing on making the garden look as nice as possible, of course, because the house is going on the market. I also hope that someone who loves roses will buy it, but if that is not the case, so be it. I do think it is awful if rare roses are destroyed, but in this case that is not a concern. If it is just a matter of liking a different style of garden, I really have no problem with the new owners radically changing the garden after they move in - it will be their house then, and I do not think that is "heartless" behavior.

Actually, taking out roses is a lot less "heartless" than the stories I've read here of what some rose lovers do when they move into houses with stands of trees in the garden which they immediately cut down so that there will be sun for roses - trees are homes for lots more birds and animals than most rose bushes are!

Anyway, I will be happy when the house sells - it is on 2 lots for a total area of 1/2 acre (which is a huge lot in CA - I realize not in the rest of the country!). The good part is that when my father-in-law had his house built, he deliberately put it in the middle of the property, so the property can never be split back into two lots. So, there will have to be a garden of some sort! Actually I am looking forward to seeing what the new owners do. If they are rose folks, of course, I will give them my rose map. Otherwise, I just might frame it.

Jackie