Thank you thank you. I was thinking of co-planting a deer-nonfriendly plant like allium or catmint or russian sage. If you underplant with roses, what is the set-back, generally? Trying to think of how much to dig, width-wise. many thanks again

Hoovb your rose yard is beautiful. Mine can't hold a candle to yours but I do try. Arizona and So. Cal weather are very different along with the soil.
Mad T you don't say if you have any trees. Roses don't like top rooting trees. Just saying.

Wow hoovb, what a knocked out yard. Looks better than Fine Gardening magazine.

Arizona is an agricultural state and lots grows here. For roses, you have to mulch mulch mulch and work to improve the soil.

This is a picture of my backyard.

I have three areas.

The front bed is tiered. The top tier is all full size roses. the bottom tier is a mix of minis, bulbs and perennials. It's nice because the fuller bottom level sort of hides the bare knees on the top ones, lol. The top tier is about 9 feet wide at one end and narrows to around 2 feet at the other. The bottom tier is about 3 feet wide all the way. The whole bed is about 16 feet long and has around 30 roses in it.
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This is the street bed we recently put in to house some of the roses from the patio pots which were getting out of hand. It has all my OGRs, some of my seedlings and all the shrub type roses that were getting too large for the patio. This bed ia around 6 feet wide most of the way but does taper at the far end. It;s about 30 feet long and has another 30 or so roses in it but it also has 2 lilacs, a forsythia and a burning bush and some iris in there as well.
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And of course there's the patio rose garden and seedling nursery. Most of the potted ones are my exhibition HTs and minis so I can fuss with them easily. I have around 80 seedlings and 40 some pots.
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Oh my goodness, what pictures. Thank you so much. This has been a treat! What beauty you are all responsible for. Much to learn.
And yes, I do own some trees for the first time in my life :)
Mainly a line of ever greens, some fruit trees, etc. None close to the house near the would-be rose bed, however.

Oh, I do love all the rose garden pics--all of them look wonderful--wish I could duplicate every one of them in my gardens! Thanks for sharing, everybody.

Kate

My garden is way messier and more casual than the beautiful ones above - I plant roses wherever I think there just might be enough sun for them - on the house, up trees behind the garage, in large pots on the patio, on all of the fences, and out by the street, as well as in the beds. Here is a picture of some planted on both sides of the sidewalk in front of our house.

I cope with the deer problem by planting my small roses inside of "deer cages", until they are old enough that the deer won't actually kill them. Then I spray deer spray on any choice basal canes or buds I am trying to save, and don't worry about the rest. All depends on the amount of "deer pressure" you have, of course. Not that bad in our garden, because we live 4 blocks from downtown, and although we do have nocturnal deer who visit all of the time, I think by the time they get to our yard they are on desert, and are not that hungry.

Jackie

Oh, my! Gorgeous! Thanks for the eye candy folks. These are my favorite kind of posts. Lou

I am loving all the garden shots. Everyone has such done such a beautiful job! My garden is a work in progress and one that will never be done. It is such a joy and privilege to work outside with all of my roses. lesley

Wonderful gardens, everybody! Really enjoyed seeing them.

If you underplant with roses, what is the set-back, generally? Trying to think of how much to dig,

You have to figure your roses are going to be wider eventually, though in zone 5 maybe not super wide. Then figure how wide your companion plants are going to get at maturity. Add the two numbers together, then add 12-18" so you have some breathing space between the roses and the companion plants. And remember wider is always better. You can always add more plants. :^)

I love these photos! I have a lot of work to do but this is the space I am starting with. it is not going to be solely roses his mostly roses. I hope it works out ad beautifully as yours!!
I am happy to be starting with a somewhat clean plate again!

Great pics everyone! :)

Good luck Rene, warning rose planting can be addictive!

Thankyou! I believe I am already an addict. I have a vision that I can only hope to achieve.....and then some!

Seil-beautiful OGR and shrub bed. What OGR's do you have in there? It's all balanced out with the right ones in the right places in a cottage garden sort of way. Mary

I am just now planting a raised bed in morning sun that I expect will be a good bed for roses. Morning sun is really a good location if you can place your roses there and it brings out the best fragrance. If you have winds that might thrash the plants then look around for a wall or a hedge or something to shield them. And if you plant a hedge, then you have a wonderful background to show off your roses colors. But I agree with hoovb that protection from deer, rabbits, etc. is the first consideration. Next is the amount of sun exposure and then start to build a good soil where you intend to plant. I suspect it's all the beautiful opera that hoovb listens to that makes her plant poetic gardens.

Great post....my favorite pics are seeing the full bush pictures and landscapes! Hoovb is my inspiration but the rest are beautiful too. These are some pics from last spring...a couple more weeks to go before I get to this stage again!
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A couple of photos of my backyard the past year. I sacrificed the grass over two summers, putting in these raised beds.

Preblooms,
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Bloom time insanity,
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I have several rose beds.

This is my first rose bed in front of the house. I've changed it a lot over the past 10 years:

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This is the other side of the front, I call this the 'hot' bed with red, yellow and orange roses.

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This is the middle bed in my front lawn. The junipers in this picture have become very overgrown and have to be pruned back a lot.

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This is my 'Tea Bed' when it was first planted in 2009

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This is two years later:

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This is the east side of my house there are 3 roses here that are climbers that have single rose blooms.

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This is what I call my 'English Tea Bed', it has Austins and Tea Roses in it. It's a heart shaped bed.

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I don't know what the heck happened before. The pictures were showing when I posted it and then I came back and there were all these quotation remarks all over the image file names. Hopefully you can see the pics now.

ok, last time I try to correct this. I'm not sure why GW is messing up my links.

This post was edited by buford on Fri, Apr 12, 13 at 19:52

Amazing pics everyone. I have a bad case of garden envy now. Buford, I couldn't pull up any of your pics.

Buford can't see your yard pictures Sorry

Fantastic thread. This should be a sticky (always on top of the threads) and people could post to it all the time

The inter-plantings in all these pictures are so great. I need to get cracking.

Buford your pictures showed up on my iPad. Not sure why they don't show on my Mac. Anyway they are beautiful.
Mary

no roses as I bought my camera after main spring flush. Tiny, and very new garden (still haven't rendered the beds, but, you know, gotta join in on the photo-fest.

Tuggy, I have Graham Thomas, Rose de Rescht, Reine des Violets, Dainty Bess, Honorine de Brabant, Golden Wings and some of my seedlings from Mme. Isaac Pereire in that bed along with several Buck roses and polyanthas.

I don't have a very neat or organized garden like some of you. Just lots of mixed colors and volume. For a suburban lot it's fairly large but there isn't all that much space for roses because of the trees. As it is some of these don't get as much sun as they'd like. That's why I ended up with the patio pots.

Buford, I can't see your pics either?

campanula, your garden is beautiful! You often tend to denigrate or downplay it (oh what a frightful mess) but I think it's really lovely, very restful and lovely color combination. It's nice to see what you're finally talking (or moaning) about.

Ingrid

Camp, finally, we get to see part of your garden. It's beautiful.

Seil-Thanks for the names of the roses. It helps me to know what blends well. Lovely mixed collection.

Heres my new bed on the slope. I want to make a retaining wall and add more soil and then I can plant a line of short bushy roses all across the front.

From left to right is Abe Darby, Lion's Rose, Perfume Delight, Chrysler Imperial ( looks more red but my camera skews the hue ), Twilight Zone and SdlM. Hiding in the way back behind and to the right of Lion's rose is an Othello under the Pomegranate tree.

CI, TZ, SdlM all growing nicely now. I think this will be a good fragrance bed. I put Lion's rose in the back to add beauty and a good leafy background even though it isn't much on scent. I think if the base gets shaded by the others, it won't get disease. There's room to the right of Abe Darby for one more big rose. I think it's going to be Evelyn. Hopefully, it will work some magic for me. This is a good morning sun spot and gets shade in the hottest times of the day. My summer is a little hotter than Hoovb's but maybe it's close enough. I'm going to hope for the best.

The only downside to this location is that it will take the full force of the Santa Ana wind from across the street. We are along the Santa Ana river channel and the wind blows strongly through the gap. It seems to be shifting later than Halloween now. I used to call it the Halloween Wind.

Kitty, your pictures are beautiful. The retaining wall with shorter roses in front should finish off that area beautifully. I hope we'll see pictures when that area is finished. I'll be interested to find out what smaller roses you'll choose. Some of the short Austins and polyanthas would be lovely, or roses like Sweet Chariot, Blue Mist or Vineyard Song. You probably already have some great ideas of your own.

Ingrid

Every time I come on the forum, I have to look through everone's lovely pictures again. Hoov, I've decided you don't post enough pictures.