The gardens around me seem to be overflowing with mainly children, cars and junk. Flowers are kinda rare right around me. And it's not like I live in a "bad" neighborhood. Just doesn't seem to be a priority with these folks.

Which is one of the reasons my front yard is a bit nondescript. No roses in front. Decently landscaped, but then you go in the backyard and POW!!!

In our neck of the woods, folks in most of the newer areas have their yards "landscaped" by people who know zippo about plants.
They often plant roses, but for the most part it is Iceberg, Iceberg, and Iceberg -- and not even the sort of mass planting, which Iceberg does so well.
The older homes for the most part aren't old enough to have much of real interest, though you find some hefty Lady Banks, here and there.

Jeri

Our street is relatively new (construction just finished late last year) so some people don't have backyards at all, and some just have whatever the development put in in the front yard. We do have a lot of salvia and lavender, which I like. (ie neighbors)
Despite being past the association deadline to start their yard for several months, many of my neighbors still have dirt lots in the back!
so I don't feel guilty for throwing a snail over the side of the wall occasionally. :P :)

There are some beautiful roses in the front yards of a few homes in the older part of the development when we were driving around before buying. I didn't notice any OGRs but there might have been some! One of the houses down the street from me has some lovely HT tree roses.

The development has planted some lovely banks of things up and down the streets. Like I saw them using yellow Lady Banks roses all over as shrubs! I can't wait to see what they look like when they get bigger. And they have tons of Iceberg, which is fine for what it needs to be... low maintenance in a huge group, plenty of pretty from far away.

Two of my good friends have rose gardens... one has mostly DAs and the other has mostly HTs. Another of my good friends inherited her roses from the previous owner, and hers are all pink iceberg. I'm trying to encourage her to try some other stuff (I know her color taste at the very least is not pink iceberg...! She'd love to get some autumny-colored Leonidas Roses in there... but she's so busy, I think she's afraid to take out the established icebergs and have the "hole" there as the Leonidas are growing to size...)

It's funny... I've always loved roses, but I didn't really know about OGRs until somewhat recently. I didn't even particularly notice that some roses looked different from hybrid teas and cecile brunner. :) Now... I still love some Hybrid Teas... but... I'm so enamoured of the OGRs and Austins. I really love them so much more! I tend to not be interested in looking at Iceberg and HTs when I see gardens of them.

I tend to get interested in something and want to research everything about it... so when I started a garden, I got a ton of books and searched online, etc...

My mom was talking to me about one of her nieces that she was helping with her yard. Her niece (an adult woman older than me) will just buy whatever she happens to like at home improvement store, etc... and then will just dig a tiny hole and stick it in the ground with no thought to the design of the yard... or whether that plant will do well there. She doesn't augment the soil at all either, and her soil is just as hard and clay-y as mine! My mom helped her redesign her yard a little bit and they put in some backbone plants and some of my mom's irises. :)

I imagine a lot of people must treat their gardens this way. It just doesn't really occur to them that there' could be a lot more to it ? Or they are busy or whatever. I'm not saying it's WRONG... but so much of the fun for me is asking questions and learning. and I'm very very busy. But... no matter how busy I am, just going out to weed for a little bit in the morning or check on the plants makes me feel better before I start my day.

My mom had never seen DA roses before and wasn't really aware of OGRs, persay. She lives in Charleston, South Carolina, so she's familiar with a lot of noisettes and older roses,... but she doesn't really know about them being OGRs. She loves to garden and takes a lot of time with hers. (she has a lot of hydrangea, irises, moonvines and such...) I wish I could give her a rose for fun to share with her, but her yard is pretty shady.

I'll have to pay more attention to what I see around lately.

Wilo, It's nice that at least your backyard is where your garden shines and has roses. I get to peek into many backyards that can be viewed from the sidewalk and see ones that have so much sunny room for roses and think, WOW, if I had that backyard I could create a rose empire. Most people though, leave their backyards in a blah state and do nothing with it. I'm sure yours is wonderful. Thanks for posting.

Juliet

Juliet, you do not sound like a snob, just someone who has more knowledge of the world beyond HTs. I believe HTÂs and Knockouts are the beginnerÂs rose, donÂt you agree? I started with Double Delight, loved her fragrance, but she doesnÂt work well in my current climate/zone.

My subdivision is new, first home built was in 2007. Most front yards are plain. LetÂs just say builders landscape package.

Fast forward to present day, the subdivision has lots of overgrown shrubs inappropriately placed in front of windows, annuals that have died 3 years ago, and weeds over 4 feet high. IÂm 5 feet tall so trust me when I say the weeds are 4 feet high. Maybe the homeownerÂs intent was to build a self-sustaining hedge. Who knows?

Your neighbors are so blessed to have you as a neighbor. YouÂll enlighten them with knowledge about the world of roses, the history of OGRÂs and so on.

I would be honored to have you and the rest of the talented folks on GW as neighbors. Thank goodness for the internet!

i live in a townhouse complex and i will admit that even though there is minimal planting space (and i probably have more than most), i am surprised at how many of my neighbours (and they are all retired), don't do more with theirs.
since i have maximized every square inch of my area and it really is something to behold in full bloom. you'd think that my neighbours would want to keep up with me ...
part of me wants to hijack their property and do what i will with it...
to be fair though, my one neighbour did get the rose bug a couple of years ago from me and she is growing some really healthy specimens that are even rivalling mine lol.
she is always too happy to take whatever roses i dig up due to my unrest every spring and whenever i plant one of my roses in her garden, it always seems to do better there.

Jeri, those carbon copy landscaped gardens leave me so cold. I watch HGTV and so many of the landscaping shows feature the same old band wagon of plants. And gardens should be individual! It's amazing how Iceberg is used in CA like it's the only rose in existence. Who gets the royalties on it, is it Kordes? What a gold-mine! I know it's used in the breeding of many roses as well. I also can't bear the site of those Knockouts.

Aimeekitty, I love salvia and lavender too. I also do a lot of research when I become interested in something. And I have thrown snails over the wall as well, but only because the home next door was vacant and for sale. You made me laugh when I read that. Your mom is lucky to live in Charleston. That is a charmer of a city and if I lived there I would grow tons of Noisettes. It just seems like the perfect place for those. Very romantic, I think.

Vuwugarden, thank you so much. You are very kind to say that. I would be happy to be your neighbor too. Four ft. high weeds would be an eye-sore to look at. Hope your neighbors take the weeds down. It's so nice when people add beauty to their gardens, rather than let them go into abandon.

Joebar, I too get the impulse to just go into their gardens and transform them into their full potential. Many of them have much more space than me. What they can do would be amazing. I'm glad you inspired at least one neighbor into roses. Post pics of your garden on the Antique gallery when you get the chance.

Juliet

Well, I only have one neighboring house (LOL) and they don't really garden. We live on a farm and the closest neighbor on the other side is about a 1/4 mile away. Although there are no close gardening neighbors, my mom lives a few miles away and she loves to garden!

She and I have been having fun trying DAs and OGRs this year. So many of my friends don't garden much at all (maybe a few veggies) but we have short summers and most people would rather go to the lake.

It's nice to visit with all of you...I get the best ideas and such gorgeous pictures of all your roses :)

Juliet -
Even though my neighbors only have a dirt lot, I still felt just a tiny bit guilty for throwing a snail. And then I thought... what if they SAW me throwing a snail! What would they think! haha.

I grew up in Charleston and then moved out here (SoCal) to go to school and work. (the job I do, there's barely any of it outside the LA area, basically..) But I love Charleston, you're right, it's really a charming city, I think that's a great way to describe it. People are very sweet there, too. The old houses downtown have the most charming sideyards and formal gardens, even though they are tiny lots.

Instead of iceberg roses (like in CA) in Charleston, everyone grows azalea. :) I get very tired of azalea except when I see it at Middleton Plantation in Charleston where it is a WALL OF COLOR. So, I pretty much was like "NO AZALEA" when I was planning my garden here.

I think it would be really fun to have a neighbor like you guys, because you could squee over new things you found out and each others' plants. I think it'd be fun to give each other plants, too. I'm already thinking that if the Alba I planted in the front is going to be sad, I might as well just mail it to a friend of mine who lives in another state that has winter. It'd be so fun to have a local friend I could give plants to, though.

if you mention OGRs or something to someone... maybe you will open up a whole new world to them! I think as long as you do it in a sweet way, most sane people would be happy for the idea. :)

Slim pickings for me when it comes to neighbors, Juliet. Very good subject, though. Across the street we have hills populated only by coyotes and other wild things. Neighbor Jim on one side has five acres of overgrown native vegetation with an assortment of "classic" cars. We can't see the neighbors on the other side but they basically have five acres of orange trees. They're in their eighties and I doubt that they're up for much gardening around their house. Our other neighbor is about 200-300 feet above us and we can basically see the roof of their house. Having seen their yard close up once I can attest to the absence of roses or much plant material of any kind. By default I'm the rose garden queen!

Ingrid

We moved into one of those newer neighborhoods with a bunch of grass and a few cutout beds of raked dirt with a few the same old plants stuck in them. Plus the trees right in front of windows almost on top of the house. Not for us. We're trying for kind of a cottage garden look, and have flowering bulbs, daylillies, daisies, echinacea, etc. as well as the roses. More trees than the neighbors, but they're out away from the house. We've made the beds larger and mostly reduced the grass to a small lawn with a path between the beds. Things grow so easily here; I don't see how anyone could be happy with bare dirt. But we've mostly gotten negative feedback from the neighbors ("your yard has so much (shudder, shudder) COLOR in it." Yeah, and it the front it's all purple, yellow, and white. Not a mishmash. Sigh. And several comments about overplanting--guess if there isn't three feet between every clump of flax, you've over planted.) We did have one neighbor stop and tell us she loves to look at our yard; her mother from England says that it reminds her of home.

Seems like "gardening" in my neighborhood equates to grass that could be replaced with astroturf without anyone noticing.

When I first moved in (Dec. 08) there was nothing but brown grass, leafless trees, and a seriously overgrown mess of a yard from the previous owners before us. Our home was a forclosure, and it looked like they had never done anything to the yard since it was built in 2001. I was itching to overhaul it!

A little background about the winter of '08: At 22, I finished my last exam of my college career on a Wednesday in December, then, 3 days later I got married. I moved to Nashville, left all of my friends and family back in Memphis. I basically started a completely new life. So, as I was stuck indoors with cold wet weather outside and not a close friend within 200 miles, I dove into gardening books. I HATED that winter and felt so depressed and yucky that I just couldn't wait for spring! That is also when I found Garden Web, and the LOVELY Rose Forums!

So basically, I am on my second year of overhauling. I was so wrapped up in making my garden awesome, that I failed to notice that not one other person around had a very interesting yard lol. I do have to admit I am very jealous of some people's grass, I seem to ignore the lawn and focus on my babies :) The only roses I have noticed in the 'hood were knockouts and 2 neighbors climbing roses. Those climbers have been SP'd by the neighbors since then, which makes me so sad, I would have taken them!

So now, I will probably start being the "crazy rose lady" Which, is fine by me. I have been wonderfully surprised at how well all of my roses have thrived, but then again, I have everyone from the Rose Forum's to help! This year alone I put SDLM, Kronprincessin Viktoria, Cl. Eden, Thomas Affleck, and Mrs. Dudley Cross right in the front yard so maybe the neighbors will get hooked on OGR's like I did :)

My garden is starting to look quite nice, and we just added a ornamental cherry tree to the back, which was the one request of my DH, and I have to say I really love it! My next attempt this year is Heirloom Tomatoes, I hope they grow as well for me as my roses, wish me luck!

Thanks for starting this post Juliet, it was very fun to read everyone's responses!

Sadly, most of my neighbors go for GREEN golf course lawn and GREEN shrubs cut into perfect globes. I call them green meatballs. We do have several houses that have azaleas and some forsythia (but again, way too many cut into meatballs). Sigh.

My next door neighbor has some beautiful plantings of azaleas, iris, coneflower, black eyed susans and a fabulous vegetable garden in his back yard. He has 1 rose, that looks like Sally Holmes. I've commented and he doesn't like it much.

Another neighbor down the street has one of every imaginable plant in pots scattered everywhere. She works really hard on them and they just look, well, scattered. She has a beautiful yellow, David Austin looking, rose right by her front door; it's small. I've wanted to ask her about it but she seems really shy and moves away when I've walked by.

I wish I had some rosy neighbors. I'm hoping when my little garden matures, some folks will show some interest...

Sorry to sound so negative.

I have one neighbor who is a plant and rose lover like me, but she doesn't know about OGR's just hybrids, which don't last very long in the sandy nematode infested soil.
My other neighbor's husband has paved over 90% of their yard. In Florida this is often done to save irrigation. Some people put white shell on their yards with small islands of drought resistant tropicals. His wife loves plants though so I give her cuttings of whatever will live tucked into small corners. And she asked me for the websites for the roses I grow.

I think I might be inspiring more active gardening on my street. I see more plantings being done and walkers-by asking me what the names of plants are.

BTW I know that OGR's are hard to buy. If Lowes, Home Depot or Walmart don't sell them they won't get planted. And in my small west coast Florida town the independent nurseries specialize in sub-tropical landscapes. That's what all the northern retirees want. (I'm a northern retiree too but I love roses among my bamboo and banana trees).

Juliet, I'll start by being positive about my next door neighbor who just yesterday told me she was going to get her yard looking good for my Open Garden even though it doesn't look bad at all. Very sweet of her. Last year she had some guy come put in a cobbled patio, some beds for planting and some bahia sod (poorly) in the back. Cost her a small fortune and she got took unfortunately, but her patio is nice. Her front lawn is nice now that my St Augustine has populated it - better than what the builder gave her. She tries very hard but has a bad back. She asks me lots of questions and tells me how wonderful "your" plants are doing - meaning the passalongs I've given her. She always marvels at how her garden used to be a totally blank slate, and now it's beautiful with all the trees and shrubs she's planted.

One neighbor who obviously enjoys spending tons of money on his yard and the 2 extra lots he bought has a lifesize statue of a horse and a statue of an eagle landing on a sphere (I guess the earth) on a raised planter type thing made of those wall-making blocks. It remind me of the Marine monument. He has a gazebo and a pond with a footbridge over it. His front yard is only shrubs tastefully laid out with pathways and planters and a large lilypad kind of three-level fountain. It's very nice. Oh, he has banks of large red knockouts. He obviously takes pride in his property and works a lot on it.

Speaking of throwing snails over fences, my neighbor on the other side doesn't live there regularly. He lives in the subdivision nextdoor. So his yard is unkempt and weedy. (He mentioned once that Climbing Maman Cochet was hanging into his yard (in between my tying efforts) and said we obviously have a "different aesthetic".) We have a fence so who cares. But today I was loading yard waste from the back area behind our property into wheeled trash cans. One of them traveled through my yard to the curb, but the other one came through his yard because I was right there at that back corner. As I walked along the fence fighting the tipsy trash can, I glared at the weeds that grow UNDER my fence into my beds under the climbers that I must crawl under to pull the weeds!! I need to buy some RoundUp, and I'm going to spray his weeds along the fence. Last summer I edged his side with a shovel to stop the weeds. Not doing that again.

Truly the difference between our gardens and other people's yards is motivation and effort with most people having none of each and us having extremely high levels (but we're still nice people). They probably have other things that they're motivated about, I guess. In this neighborhood front yards are small and neat and mowed by a lawn company, and most of the folks are elderly, but the man directly across the street is in his 80's and still gets out there and plants his zinnias and petunias and any number of other annuals plus he has 2 lots to mow.

I try not to think about the state of "gardens" that I drive by in town. We're all different so... But I have two wonderful rose friends who have beautiful rose gardens that they work hard in even with full time jobs. There must be others out there. I just don't see them.

BTW, I hope I did not sound REALLY snooty and nasty. I'm always in my own yard, head facing down into the dirt or flowers, and I see very little of what's around me. What a blessing for everyone else cuz I can really be a negative $#%$#!

Sherry

I live across the Bay from San Francisco, California in an older neighborhood that in the early 1900's was a summer retreat area for the families of buisnessmen, who would send their wives and children on the ferry to their summer houses over here. About 20% of all properties have old houses still on them that were built in the early 1900's. The following 3 roses are the most commonly seen old roses, growing near those lovely old homes.
1. white double "Lady Banks" 2. the yellow form of Banksiae.
Within a 5 block radius, from my house there are 11 Banksiae plants. Only 2 households seem to be aware of their plants and prune and care for them, the others seem to have been left growing wild, to fend for themselves, which they do beautifully while covering old wooden garages, trailing over fences, and spilling through trees and bushes with glorious abandon.
3 "Mlle. Cecille Brunner" by far, is the most common Old Rose, I've seen growing in Berkeley. I see several plants of it in every neighborhood,many of the huge climbing form.

Miscellaneous Old Roses in our neighborhood:
-"Bourbon Queen" a very pretty and especially fragrant non-remontant Bourbon, that I believe has been there for several decades, because I was told that someone planted a hedge over it many years ago. Yet every May I see it spilling over the hedge and blooming its' merry head off, with hundreds of those darling pink roses.
"Alliance Franco-Russe" is thriving on a deserted property on the next block, the house is vandalized, the lawn is brown and dying and yet this Old Tea roses still blossoms abundantly through the year though no one ever waters it where there is drought during 3-4 months of the year, dependably.
There are a couple old flame-hued roses, with a fruity scent, that I suspect are either Pernetiana roses or bred closely to a Pernetiana on our block.
I saw an overgrown yard of the jungle-type style of landscaping where a gigantic "Crepescule" covered about a quarter of the front yard, next to what looked like it might possibly be a very fragrant climbing pink Hybrid Perpetual that is c. 23 feet tall, and bears quite large medium-pink cabbage shaped roses, with great substance, that have an intense Damask rose type fragrance. I've never seen a rose like this and wonder what it is. It sure is a big thing, and blooms as early in spring as the Tea roses do. Foliage is matte and a bit rough and appears more O.G.R. than modern. It appears as though it has been left alone for many decades.
"Perle d'Or" grows a few blocks from where I live. The owners have meticulously clipped off all its twiggy growth habit so it appears like a Florabunda. This must have taken them hours to accomplish and I hope to meet them some day.
"Susan Louise" a marvelous Tea-Hybrid gigantea, grown as an immense self-supporting bush in Berkeley.
Rosa gigantea, to my amaze, was growing on a property planted with common suburban plants, a couple miles from the Berkeley Botanical garden.
"Mutabilis" in a yard near the pharmacy, with common suburban type plants, including that Pepto-Bismal pink camellia that one sees everywhere nearby.
"La Reine" on the side of a garage, on a property where the owners have only chosen to grow native plants. They had no idea that an Old Garden Rose was sharing their property and were delighted to know its' name.
I was walking to Live Oak Park in Berkeley and I stopped, astonished to see an entire yard surrounded with a tall wooden fence that was covered with several "Mme. Alfred Carriere", what a lovely surprise.
I drove by a hedge of Spray "Cecille Brunner" , 3 blocks from my home, and was admiring it when the couple who owned the house came out and asked me politely why I was staring at their property. They were delighted to know that their rose was nearly 100 years old, and asked me to write its' name down for them. The father puts a blossom on his young daughters breakfast setting every morning.
I was thrilled to find a person one block away from my home that grows Ramblers in her backyard, and a Rosa moschata in her front yard.

I overlook most modern roses and search for those I love.
I am encouraged by the fact that 2 ladies within 6 blocks of my home prefer and grow more Old Roses than modern, and that many folks, upon learning of the fact, are enthusiastic when they find out they have an Old Rose living with them.

Luxrosa

Hmmm, I could ramble forever on this topic, but really for the most part it comes down to sheer laziness of most people these days...harsh yet very true. The spikes of obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and overall lack of creativity are really what sums up the end results of many gardens as well. People do not cook foods nearly as much anymore as fast food is readily available...want a home?...buy a block home in a subdivision and somebody throws up a "model" for you...want a garden?...get the "landscaper's build" of hostas.

Now usually I like to walk around my nice neighborhood in Columbus and I go on the lookout for roses and other interesting plantings. I live in a fairly creative neighborhood. I am not discouraged by the lack of rose plantings as I'm mostly just looking for some individuality and creativity. I've even seen some custom plantings of hostas that were quite nice and appropriate for some homes. However, in most scenarios...especially in suburbs it's the same colored home with the same basic landscape. Throw in a few perennials and some mulch and there you go. Have some weeds coming up?...call somebody to spray the area for you. I can attribute all of this...in my opinion to NUMEROUS things that I could write for HOURS about, however I will just leave the idea of the matter to what it is. I suppose if those people are pleased and "content" with that around their home then good for them. I'm sure most people don't think a thing about it, but for the lot of us who actually interested in the beauty of gardening, it comes across as a recurrent thought of "what it could be" in the back of our heads. With all of our creativity, we tend to visualize and envision many things for each home or location we see.

As for my neighborhood itself, it is full of Victorian and Edwardian styled homes that are quite nice. However, living a stone's throw from central downtown in Columbus, you can imagine how small the yards are. There are a quite a few trees as well which is the cause of numerous hosta plantings, but most of the nicer homes implement nice perennials and lots of ivy in with the hostas to make it very green to contrast the Victorian colors of their homes. I have no problem with that when all the shade is considered. Another big problem is that it is simply Ohio and people don't want to worry about the cold and the rose, plus deadheading, pruning, etc. None of my immediate neighbors have roses except for one which grows some form of a fairly large shrub rose on the side of her house. It's never pruned or taken care of though as it's mostly just "there". After I built one of my arbors and planted a few roses, I was happy to see that same neighbor lady planted a few mini roses. I found it kind of humorous, but it was a nice enabling start at least and hassle free for her as she doesn't really have a "yard". As I walk around the rest of my village, I occasionally stumble across some other roses, but not many. I know a guy that has a mature Othello in the front of his house. I ran into him outside and asked him what rose it was, as I figured it was some form of an Austin. He didn't know, but checked the tag around the base and saw it was Othello. The rose was at least somewhat taken care of, although minimally, but the guy enjoyed having the rose and implemented some creativity by having a line of giant sunflowers as his his side entrance that looked down at him along the sidewalk. I'm not sure I would exactly call him a gardener, but it was gratifying to see somebody express some creativity. After that, I stroll across some Europeanas, but mostly knockouts...at least they are roses I suppose. Not a single climbing rose to be found aside from a Dr. Huey down the street. I like azaleas, so they add easy color to the neighborhood. One big plus with the neighborhood that you can tell "caught on" was the useage of peonies. Quite a few homes have peonies planted and unique peonies at that which is very pleasing to see as the peonies are very pretty. My hope is that roses also eventually "catch on", especially with the rose culture of the Victorian gardens. At this time, I kind of just look at our interpretation of rose loving as a self-inspired creative virtue that we all express and are provided the opportunity to enjoy for ourselves. Having experienced the joy of the roses, it becomes difficult for us to fathom how other's can not find the will to enjoy them as well. I also wonder how other's don't do it, but all I know is that I love it and hopefully I can put forth enough of a show for some random person to walk or drive by, pause, think creatively, and find the inspiration to try their hand at roses as well.

...and well.....that's the short version of my thoughts haha.

All the neighbors here grow succulents, pepper trees, ice plants and bougavillas! Yuk! My neighbor up the path does have a climbing rose that has prolific pink blooms on his trellis close to his entrance. There are about three white banksia roses in the neighborhood but that's about it. Other than that all I see are cactus and other succulents. As Ingrid stated so well, I,too, am the rose queen here by default!

Cookie cutter, meatball bushes, knock outs, crepe myrtles, blah blah blah blah.....

I am definitely the rose queen around my little neck of the woods (aka Laguna Woods, aka Leisure World etc). Right now the evening air all around my condo is enough to make one swoon with the rose fragrance. Buff Beauty in full bloom inside my 15 x 15 patio along with Spice and Clair Matin. Outside are plenty more with neighbors coming by on their walks to check it out. There are plenty of gardeners all around but it's hard to find one with as much variety as I have in mine. I love nothing more than cutting bouquets for interested people. It makes their day! They all laugh that they have the best view of my flowers! That makes my day! Now, I just want to continue spreading old and good smelling roses all around the community. It makes it a better place for all of us, don't you think?

Lawn (Bermuda), some evergreen shrubbery, a few crepe myrtles, that were installed by the builder and lots of lantanas. Some pensies in winter. A few neighbor has azaleas, very common daylilies and oriental lilies. Boring, boring and boring. But that's what the subdivision board likes. They hate ambitious gardeners.

Who gets the royalties on ['Iceberg'], is it Kordes?

'Iceberg' has been out of patent over 30 years. What it does do is basically fund the Weeks hybridizing operation. They sell more 'Iceberg' each year than all their other roses put together. Long live 'Iceberg'!

There are some beautiful gardens around here. The neighbors all planted roses after they saw mine. In the older gardens in this neighborhood, the roses are always in little rose "ghettos" and are usually in mostly shade. Everyone went hog-wild planting trees, and now that the trees are 40'-60' tall and wide, most people don't have a lot of sun. I hate the fan palms and Eucalypts because they reseed everywhere and more importantly are a serious fire danger. If everyone had left the native oaks, wow what a neighborhood this would be.

Outside of town people in this agricultural area basically don't have gardens. They tend to stick to the classic Italian idea of some kind of terrace, i.e. a flat, naked-of-vegetation area by the house, with a few shrubs or trees and a handful of flowers. Wives argue for more flowers; husbands want to keep all the land for farming. The vegetable garden ("orto") is sacrosanct. In town people do have gardens, and how wrongheaded they are, even when the owners try. I'm not quite sure what the motivation for having them is: social correctness? room for the children to play? no possible alternative? I very rarely see a garden that expresses a love of plants here. Many gardens are poorly designed and just ugly; others are competent but boring. Some of the absolute worst gardens are those of houses that are in the country and whose owners have planted the garden in pure suburban style. Maddening! Meanwhile the old buildings with a plant scattered here and there can be charming: there's a stone outbuilding locally that has 'Centifolia' and a mock orange planted in front that are glorious when they bloom together. And lilacs are common, and in bloom now, and wonderful. But where I live any garden beauty is pretty much accidental.

This lamentable situation has been the case most places I've been in Italy and I thought it was universal, until we went on vacation this Easter down in Tuscany. We stayed in a small town between Viareggio, Lucca, and Pisa, and walking around town I saw gardens like I'd never seen them in this country. The small yards were full of plants: trees, shrubs, hedges, herbaceous plants, vegetable patches, pots and tubs of flowers. Wonderful plants; healthy, taken care of, not rare but pretty; beautiful; and obviously loved. The lawns were symbolic of the whole. The grass was healthy and mowed, but the owners evidently didn't mind the daisies and clover and other plants that shared space with the grass: the Italians I've known elsewhere who want grass are maniacal about keeping so-called weeds out of it. Here I saw much less interest in order, and much more pleasure, affection, and delight in plants. This is an area where you can grow oranges AND lilacs, and the soil is amazing: crumbly brown stuff that obviously came straight out of Eden. Water ran in rivulets and channels all through town. Some of the plants I recall: a big old plant of Lavendula dentata, a frequently seen pink spirea with little button flowers (not the terrible summer-blooming ones with sickly yellowish foliage), yellow freesias all over the place, pots of orchids (Dendrobias???), tons of succulents in pots, hedges of bright green-yellow, healthy Euonymus japonica, not variegated. I would have loved to find a nursery open, one that stocked the local favorites, but we never stumbled on one.

Ha! I had been wanting to write a travelogue about our trip. But there's a point to it. We gardeners do appear to be distinctly in the minority. I hear it in what everyone has written; I feel that way myself; the Italian garden forumists relate exactly the same experiences and feelings. HOWEVER, I go to this little town in Tuscany and there are beautiful gardens everywhere I go: I find myself in a community where there's a widespread love of plants and of gardening. So, it appears that it's possible to develop a local, widely shared, gardening culture. There's hope.

Melissa

Rereading my previous post I note that I have confused "garden" with "yard". The plantings around Italian houses, to employ the most generic word I can come up with, are usually a combination of lawn and shrubs, with perhaps some flowering plants. Some have what could be described as gardens, with flowers. The rural houses don't have grass yards as we understand them in the U.S., just the terraces I described. I'm not sure that my explanation is much clearer than my original message, but offer it for what it's worth.
Melissa

I live in a small Dutch village, so luckily suburban pavement gardens are not that common here, although I have seen a few around. Generally gardens are rather different here, some have different kinds of green shrubs, some filled with hydrangeas, some are completely wild flower ones. There are a few attempts on green meatballing, but since Dutchies are generally not that good in orderly pruning, the meatballs often are hopelessly miss-shaped. There also are quite some trees around, I especially love the decorative cherries and apples in spring - some very old ones are truly spectacular when in bloom.

As for the roses, nearby we have one family trying cottage style garden and they planted climbers all around their house, some of them OGR from what I can recall. Its quite lovely, although it could be way better if they pruned their roses occasionally.

Also, rose hedges are reasonably common here. Usually they either have a low metal fence and one or many kinds of roses planted by it; either some low border from evegreen shrub in formal garden style and a row of roses behind it.

Also quite a few people have climbers, mostly some modern ones, but occasionally you can come across something unexpected. Like in some small street there is a huge Veilchenblau on the fence, then some other house has Paul's Himalayan musk and so on.

My direct neighbors do not grow roses (except one behind our house, with completely abandoned garden and huge Sympathy growing in between the weeds), but they have some sort of cottage/perennial gardens that look quite ok. I think one of them planted some climbing rose in their backyard, quite curious what kind of rose that would be. The neighbors on other side of the street have some sort of lawn. One of them is very old and probably keeps his lawn as low maintenance thing, with some veggie patch in his backyard. Another one is a bit of eclectic gardener, in front they have some sort of lawn with 2 big and extremely boring decidious trees - some sort of acer negundo I think. It would be some much better if they had a rambler in them, but oh well. Then they have separated side/backyard, with some border plants in it, and elaborate 2 stores high brick shed. They have some red climbing rose growing on it, and some flowers, also some sort of long arbor, which they planted with different kinds of ivy, so it is just some green blob.

Not really any kind of gardens at all. No roses to be found. There is someone growing a rugosa a few blocks away. Mostly evergreen shrubs, rhododendrons. Some people put out annuals every year. Those tall orange daylilies are common, probably because they never die.

I actually rarely see roses of any type in my town. Probably because when people buy the ones that are offered at Home Depot or even the local nursery, or what they think of as "real" roses (HTs), they die their first winter.

Down at the beach the rugosas grow wild and there are certain places that smell like heaven in June. That's the only good rose experience around here.

ceterum, did you mean pansies, LOL. Yes, that describes my sub division. Now that it's 10 years old, at least the trees and shrubs have matured. But you either get the people who don't keep up the property or you get the boring. Our HOA board gives out a 'yard of the quarter' 4 times a year. You'd think with 100 roses bushes, most in the front, I'd win at least once. But no. I have a feeling they don't approve of my yard and I'm always doing something in it, so it never looks 'finished'.

Still, I get a lot of passerbys who tell me they love my yard and one year when I had a very nice spring flush, I caught a few people drive in cars and stopping outside and looking. So that makes me feel good. To heck with the HOA boards!!! And if they ever give me another letter about weeds (no, those were wild flowers) or pots in the yard, I may go insane! Rant over....

My neighbors don't think gardening or landscaping is important. I go to great lengths with my garden to show them how I feel.

{{gwi:250518}}

Harryshoe - That message is loud and clear!

I like in an old town engulfed by new development. I live in the old part, where most houses are adorned with ancient boxwoods, rhododendrons, etc. Very boring. I only see roses at one house, a pair of yellow HTs near the porch (with no other flowers at all). The boxwoods at one lovely, but somewhat dilapidated Victorian have completely engulfed the front walkway, rendering the front door and porch completely inaccessible.

No neighbors have seemed to even notice my garden, except a the few that have commented on the amount of work it must require. No one wants my extra roses, or any other plants for that matter.

My closest neighbor has mentioned an interest in roses but she has refused to even look at mine, or even to place an order somewhere with me. "Oh no, I want the BIG ones". She finally found the Double Delight she wanted at Home Depot.

maureeninmd,

Sounds like your experience is just like mine--the most frequent feedback from neighbors is comments about the work. What they don't seem to understand is that it's actually less work than their golf course yards and Dr. Scholl's footpad bushes--once it's in place, that is. My front yard is at a point where it gets a good weeding a couple of times a year, and a little pruning here and there, maybe a few new plants put in or a couple old ones divided or removed. We did spend some time on adding a new layer of mulch this year, but that's pretty much it for the summer. Now I get to sit back and enjoy the show (the back yard is another story--it's not as far along, but hopefully it'll get there.) The neighbors will be out mowing for hours a couple of times a week for the rest of the summer, while we can sit back with a cool drink and watch the birds, bees, and flowers.

Yeah, it takes some extra work up front, and it's not instant gratification, but probably less work in the long run and a lot more enjoyable.

I live in a rural subdivision of about 120 homes in the middle of an agricultural area. All our homes are situated on large lots; the smallest lot is 1/2 acre, with our place having 2.5 acres and having the most land in the entire subdivision. We have gently rolling hills on our plot with lots of mature oak, maple, cherry, and spruce trees.

When we moved here 25 years ago, I took advantage of all the shade to add huge hosta and fern gardens in the woods, and it became a natural progression from there to continue to plant the hillsides with roses, coneflowers, iris, daylilies, lilacs, clematis, and any other colorful plant that will thrive and catches my eye. I also adore colorful ornamental spring-blooming trees and incorporate those into the landscape as well.

I get lots of foot traffic with people walking down my street to look at my gardens and get lots of questions; one little older lady even drives down from the front of the neighborhood in her golf cart....Italian music blazing away. I adore her and her visits make my day! She is also a gardening fanatic and has a beautiful garden.

My two neighbors on my cul-de-sac have finally gotten interested in roses, tho. One of my longtime neighbors next door placed an order with me for 5 Palatine roses...she knows NOTHING about roses but is willing to learn...she loves mine and wanted something for the front of her house. It's a small step!! And I bought my dear neighbor across the street an Orange Veranda for her birthday....and her hubby bought her 3 Julia Childs yesterday for her lamp post. So my roses will now have neighbors....
-terry

My neighbourhood was built 1932 to 2009 so houses and gardens are all very different. Many lots are subdivided from larger gardens and our garden is among the largest in the block, a half acre. The property is worth much more than the tiny house and we are regularly harassed by developers.

My new next door neighbour to the west is having her yard completely made over by a large crew for the past two weeks. I have no idea what it will be like when they are finished. They don't seem very knowledgeable because they came over to borrow a rope when they were about to take down a large birch and needed it to direct where the tree was to fall. It still fell on the roof of the neighbour to the south. Not much damage but very clumsy by so called
professionals.

Most neighbours with small gardens have manicured lawns and annuals in tubs and pots and one early apple. One of them has a Tuscany Superb and a Madame Boll. I got my Minette from a lady on the other side of the street, further down. It's gone now with new owners of the house. The lady in the large older garden across the street has a red climber, probably Sympathie, and several very old Lafayette roses (Joseph Guy in Europe). Her garden is somewhat Italianate on two sides with a rectangular ornamental pool, a masonry pergola with honeysuckle underplanted with daylilies. The back garden is wild with tall pines, shrubs and ferns. She gave me lots of plants when I moved in, asparagus, perennial sweet peas (scentless) and ferns.

Her next door neighbour has a large garden with lots of lawn with scattered island beds that are a riot of colour. She growns mostly annuals from seed that she collects every year and keeps the seed trays on top of her boiler.

Our nearest and dearest neighbours to the south are keen gardeners with a large kitchen garden and a very neat herb garden, soft fruit bushes, lilacs, flower beds. I've forbidden them to ever take down their three tall thujas because I have "borrowed" them as a focal point! Their garden shed is a nice dark brown colour and very close to our garden so my macleayas look very good against it. They gave us a viticella clematis seedling a few years ago.

I like many gardens in the neighbourhood because I agree with the poster who appreciates creativity. I am content to be the only rose lady as long as the others have fun in their gardens.

Marianne in Sweden

PS. I have used garden and yard as synonyms.

I'm in the suburbs of Phoenix so almost all my neighbors have gravel front yards with the usual boring plants: bougainville, oleanders, cactus, lantana, etc. My next door neighbor (I think he's secretly competing with me) has planted his whole yard in succulents and cactus, all kinds, and it actually looks very nice. There are some roses in my neigborhood, mostly hybrid teas but there is a nice lady banks rose a couple streets over. That's the only climbing rose I see in my neighborhood.

So, my front yard is quite a contrast: Maman Cochet, Catherine Mermet, Alister Stella Gray, Climbing Maman Cochet, Mme Charles, Mme Joseph Schwartz, Archduke Charles and on and on in the front yard.

And then there are the yards where the weeds grow up and no one does anything at all to them.

I am very lucky as I am the only person in my village to have a garden at all.
Most of the village houses are built very close together and have only tiny paved yards.
However, the people love their flowers and have lots of pots filled with all sorts of flowers in their yards. They also put them on their roofs, on their steps and out on the side of the road. As it is a mountainside village, the roads are mainly flights of steps. To stand at the bottom of one of these flights of steps, and look up to see all these pots of flowers ranged along both sides all the way up, is lovely.
They use whatever container is available, from large earthenware pithoi, to olive oil cans.
At the moment, there are lots of pots of Lilium longiflorum flowering, as it is a traditional Easter flower, and Easter is celebrated here in a big way.
I will take some photographs and post them soon, so that you all can see them too.
Daisy

This has been such an interesting post. It has made me look around more (even though 'just looking' is a favorite pastime of mine).

I live in the country, and my neighbor to the west grows 2 red tip photinias that are now about 20' tall. Just stuck in the middle of her yard. Oh, yeah, she does have an aloe vera plant that has been growing there for 10+ years. To the east, the nearest neighbor is about 1/2 mile away. She is very elderly and I rarely see her out anymore. At one time, she had some nice trees and some plantings (no roses). They have almost all died, however, and have not been replaced.

The nicest plantings I see within 2 miles either way is a field of red clover. It is beautiful in the spring, and I look forward to seeing it every year.

Well living in the wilds of Mendocino County I could make a joke about that but I won't. All the neighboring properties are at least 40 acres. For many of my neighbors water is in short supply and deer are a problem. There are several really nice gardens nearby. One couple has brought the surrounding woods into their garden and built pathways and set out beautiful statuary. They also collect bamboo and interesting trees. They are somewhat knowledgeable about roses and have planted a few ramblers. My friend Maria had a lovely pond put in by another artist friend. She has tastefully landscaped it with trees, shrubs and plants. She has a small rose garden and cottage garden. David has a wonderful garden. Part of it I call David's arboretum, where he has collected interesting trees and shrubs planted on a hillside. He is far more knowledgeable than i am about nomenculture. His flower garden is a collection of color themed beds that he has built on the hillside with broken concrete. He knows alot about old roses and grows around 100 roses. I've been to several other neighbors who very much care about gardening. Overall I'm impressed by my neighbors.

I have a tiny garden in the centre of Cambridge - a lovely ancient town but my house is quite modern and not very nice. My neighbours are mostly terrible gardeners, not because of poor taste but because they do nothing! Completely disinterested. Because my garden is so tiny, I have reclaimed the pavement outside, front and back, with many pots. I do get a lot of people enjoying them so I feel it is a bit of a social obligation. Even so, no-one else seems inspired to make an effort themselves. I also have 2 allotments where I am bordered by the worst allotment gardeners ever. Allotments are very cheap to rent from the local council and, as it is currently rather on trend to 'grow your own' (sick to death of that phrase now), there are massive waiting lists but people who cannot or will not use them still hang on to them (the council is hopeless at sorting this problem). Not only are weeds a terrible problem, they also spread disease. A few years ago, the son of one of them planted onions and then left them in the ground to rot. Gradually, the whole site has become infested with white rot and no-one can grow onions anywore unless you keep a special bulbframe with clean soil. I really don't like them because they are selfish and greedy and they know how desperate people are to get one -One of them actually boasted in a parish magazine about the 'wonderful abundance from her plot' although she actually has not even been to the plot for over 4 years!Mind, quite a few recent plot holders have had a big shock, rocking up in the middle of April to attempt to dig and plant (despite having been allocated a plot in September) and finding that it is a whole lot harder than the gardening press and media infer - a whole slew of 'half hour allotment' books have appeared of late.I have offered help in the past and suggested doing an initial glyphosate spray but they reacted as though I suggested barbecueing their children (ugh, chemicals! how terrible) but they have not got a clue about actually digging.....oh, surprise, I am having a rant again!

I grow my roses in a Community Garden LaGuardia Corner Gardens in Greenwhich Village on the edge of SOHO included is a link to Liz Christy Garden about 11 blocks from us on Houston Street one a dump now a beauty in a gentrified area. The photos of it's beginng are wonderful as that area at that time was the Classic Bowery a place of misery and derilicts now a very expensive neighborhood.

I think Imagardener2 has a point about what is generally available. I've been so disappointed as I've gone through nurseries this spring - knockout, knockout, knockout, and very little else. If people don't mailorder roses, they're going to get the lowest common denominator. I'm not a snob about knockouts - I've got some myself in distant areas of the garden where they add a spot of color - but I hate to see them at the exclusion of everything else. I love my hybrid musks & gallicas.

My next door neighbors on either side are not gardeners. Across the street lives a Master Gardener with lovely gardens, but she's not very interested in roses, although she has a few. Most everyone else is in the middle between those extremes. My garden is in dire need of weeding & other maintenance, so I'd hate to think what people might say about it :) !

I'm late to join in on this - but have to share that I have a wonderful neighbor who inspired me to get into old roses. His garden is lovely, front and back - he built a raised brick bed in front with a little tutorial of the development of remontant roses,complete with Old Blush, Autumn Damask, and some Bourbons!

My front yard is shady and the grass is terrible. Other than the license plate holder on my car that proclaims me a Master Gardenerm, and many pots in the driveway, there's no clue that my back yard is full of flowers or that I have any interest at all in gardening.

There are roses in the neighborhood, most of which was built around 1940. There are two yards with enormous Mermaids, and a few Mlle Cecille Brunners. There's a climbing Charlotte Armstrong, and some fortuneana, and a couple of badly diseased Mme Caroline Testouts. Some people are digging up their yards and having water-efficient plants put in. The city just changed the code to allow any kind of vegetation, including vegetables, in the front yard, but the norm is still grass and some shrubs.
Anita

Well, this has been a fascinating read. It gives one a vivid image of the different neighborhoods and areas we all garden in. With wonderful responses from all around the country and even England, Sweden, Italy, The Netherlands and The Mediterranean area. Thank you all so much for sharing your world!

Juliet