No, the roses didn't really play a part; that came afterwards. We both wanted to live in the country and started searching with a real estate agent. When I saw this property I fell in love with the wonderful views, the fact that there were so few houses around and even those we couldn't really see, and the potential of the house. I'd gone without my then-fiance and called him that night and said "I think we've found our house". And so we had, and were married there on the veranda the following spring. This has been a place of great happiness for both of us.

Ingrid

When I was twenty years old I wanted to go "back to the land" I grew up in an exspensive real estate area and couldn't live that dream there so I ended up in Mendocino County four years later on 15 acres south of Ukiah. I did have roses but I was Miss Lady Bountiful of the Vegetable garden back then. When my husband and I split up I had to live in town for a while. I moved here to Willits when Michael and I were married almost 15 years ago. Now I'm back on the land but my land grows roses. I do allow Michael a vegetable garden.

We realized that New Orleans was not the place to become healthy, more mature citizens.
We chose here based on property prices, taxes, cost of living and general area attitudes. We do have family and friends about an hour away.

Our quality of life means a lot to us; we had seen too many co-workers in the oil industry die early (real early) from stress.

Roses were really fun here before Rose Rosette.

We live in a wonderful climate for people, which is pretty much a cr*ppy climate for roses.
But, you know, it works. :-)

Jeri

I was born in NYC it's a good climate for many varieties of roses. There are 2 large Botanical Gardens and numerous other gardens in the city.
William Princes Nursery in Flushing sold roses through the revolutionary Period some purhased by Thomas Jefferson. In the 1800's Daniel Bolls Nursery located in what is today Times Square brought many great roses to the US.
Harrisons Yellow was first grown here and carried across the US by settelers.

Nope, bought here because taxes were lower, my husband was a supervisor for the electrical contractor for this subdivision and because of that we got a discount. This was 40 years ago, and we got a good sized plot of land. It was pasture land that was just starting to be developed, no roads to speak of, no grocery stores for miles, just ranch land; used to take our boys and German Shepherds for long treks through the pastures and creeks, absolutely nothing north of us for miles. The neighborhood kids played soccer, football, baseball, and ran around our neighborhood all they wanted. As the years passed, people moved on to bigger and better houses. We stayed. It's evolved over the years to become an older, more diversified neighborhood which I have quite enjoyed. The shopping centers that had become empty suddenly filled up with cultural diversity, bringing back to life the entrenpenuership of small businesses; super little restaurants, hair dressers, grocery stores that carry mexican, vietnamese or oriental food, pretty much whatever you want!

Oops, this is about roses. When I'm in my back yard working on my roses I don't hear the traffic, the toll road that has been built within blocks, it's just my little world and I would not trade it for anything!

I moved across country to work with a new rose nursery when the one I was working for in California closed. Does that count? Oh, and I brought 100 roses with me.

Trish

We moved across country from the southeastern US to PNW because of a job change for my dh. My suitcase full of roses was smaller than Trish's, only 21 made the trip.

But I will say that in deciding what property to buy, having room and sun to grow at least some roses was a big part of the search.

No, roses had nothing to do with coming to Sacramento. I came here for a job, and stayed for love.

I had a lot of trouble learning to garden in California, where it doesn't rain seven months out of the year. My roses were about the only plants that thrived. It's funny - people talk about roses requiring a lot of care, while I grew them because they were tough. Then I discovered old roses, tougher yet and much more interesting.

My roses, at home and in the cemetery, are certainly factors in my decision to stay here after retiring. I think that I'd grow them wherever I moved, although not having rose rosette or Japanese beetles and very little black spot has spoiled me terribly. Sacramento is rose heaven. Jeri lives where the climate is better for people than roses. I live in the opposite situation. Gosh, it gets hot here in the summer!
Anita

When we decided to buy a house, we were looking for affordable property in the village. I wanted a house with an empty garden (or at least which is not overgrown with unkempt random plants and trees) and DH wanted a house which he does not have to repair from the cellar to the roof before we can move in.

Roses appeared on the scene when we moved in. We have clay soil here and roses are one of the few plants that actually do well in clay. That and the online shopping combined got me to plant way more roses than I initially planned. :) Oh and also the local border plant nursery played a major part, since they have a beautiful garden with quite some old roses.

Our current house, my dream house, and our now-forever home, was an obsession of mine for 10 years before we bought it in 2002. I love old houses, and I loved this one in particular. It's a brick Gothic Revival farm house, built in 1848, on 9 country acres ... and I wanted it BAD. All I could do was hope that we could afford it if it ever was for sale.

The rest of the story is that I started planting roses almost as soon as we signed the closing papers at the lawyer's office. I discovered Sherando Roses (I miss them), and a new obsession was born. Everywhere DH and I have lived before was shady, so the prospect of having acres and acres of sunshine for gardening was intoxicating ... that's probably the only way to logically explain how I ended up with 800+ roses in such a relatively short time.

After working full time for five years on the restoration/renovation of our house, the roses are now the focus of my efforts here. When Sherando closed in 2008, I made the decision to start an old garden rose nursery on this property. So far, it's been a bit of a struggle, but I love the roses and I will keep at it.

Connie

It's been almost 2 years now since we moved from California to England. I love it here, and while the "cold" winter got to me this year, I'm sure enjoying spring and watching all of the bulbs pop up and the trees go into bloom.

In California, I had spent a few years creating an English cottage garden in a climate that didn't really match the plants I wanted to grow. By the end I was planting salvias instead of foxgloves and trying to bring more native plants into the garden to reduce water and create a habitat for birds and insects.

We're renting our new house, so while I have been working on the garden and fixing things up, it doesn't really feel like my place and I haven't really put my heart into it. I think I'm spending this time re-learning how to garden in this climate and experimenting. Hopefully, by the time we move to our next home, I'll be ready to really create that garden I've been dreaming of for so many years.

To answer the question: when the opportunity (job, education, and family related) to move to England came up, the idea of growing an English cottage garden in actual England (and maybe even in an actual cottage one day!) was certainly a factor in my enthusiasm to take the leap.

My husband and I inherited a small farm in eastern Washington. We hadn't really planned on living the farm life, but turns out that we love it. We're at least a half hour from grocery stores, malls, all the "necessities" but we're only a few miles from a small town that has a lot of charm.

As for roses, my mom hurt her arm a few years ago, right in the middle of gardening season. She was in a new house and had a lot of landscape to fill. I kept bringing her roses and planting them, partly to cheer her up, partly to have something that would bloom all summer. Turns out, roses seem to like me (LOL) and did well where I planted them...the horse manure from our farm might have helped :)

Anyway, I was hooked and mom and I have been ordering roses like crazy this year. We both have fallen for the old fashioned roses and while she still has some pretty hybrid teas, she's getting more rugosas and OGRs for the rest of the garden.

After helping mom, I started wanting to garden more at my own place. Although we have a lot of land, it's mostly fields and pasture, so finding places for roses can be a challenge. So far, I'm up to about 27, when all the new ones arrive. I hope to get a few more next year (the albas and a few more damasks) to put in front of the lilac hedge and that will be it...unless I remodel the old farmhouse :)

Once our 2 kids were grown up and moved out to their own homes and lives, I started gardening - typical empty womb action, I suppose. But as I delved, I started remembering my own childhood garden in DC. Small shady lot but my mother managed to grow a few tomatoes. When I was a Girl Scout we were asked to provide armfuls of roses for a Memorial Day procession at a small cemetery near Walter Reed Med. Ctr., placing roses on veterans' graves. That's when I realized we had somehow grown 3 or 4 thriving climbers on the garage wall.

So remembering this as an old woman, I realized that with our new sunny weekend place in RI (formerly a tiny rental cottage but on 2 acres of old pasture plus wetlands downhill), I could grow roses, tomatoes, -- anything! -- and I put in some rugosas, albas and other hardy old garden roses (and holly, bayberry, shadbush, irises, daylilies etc.). The lure of the history of the OGRs appeals to me. I feel a link to my deceased (when I was 11) botanist father. The scent carried by the humid seaside air is stronger than the same fragrance inland. And I have the satisfaction of making many many Japanese beetles happy. :)

Carol

I moved back to this area because my family is all here. Multiple generations, all the cousins and aunts you could ever imagine. My GREAT grandmother just passed away this year. We're a tight knit group.

Didn't start gardening till after I bought the house. Wish I had searched for a house with more land, but I was a po' kid and probably couldn't have afforded it anyway.

Anne-
Ha!
Moved out of New Orleans to mature!
I went to LSU and lived down in Thibodeaux before moving up here to be with family.. and dating a CoonA** now. I can totally relate.

blenguy - what are we like - I spent a number of years making a 'californian meadow' -or at least my idea of one! (lots of escholtzias, platystemon, aronia, zauschneria and salvias)
We do not own our house or our land - we rent it from our city council and have done for over 25 years. The garden is minute but we also have 2 allotments, half a mile down the road where I try out new plants (I am a gardener by profession, hence no money anyway to buy a house!) and we have a large vegetable area but, as my heart is with flowers, more than half the space is devoted to either various and changing gardens (scree, alpine, priarie, gravel, rose etc.) I came to gardening late - have only been one for 11 years but Cambridge is an interesting area being cold but also semi-arid. My garden is walled with a high brick wall and as it is so small, I can grow many tender plants which would curl up and die on the allotments. Interesting thread though - I am a nosy northern english girl by birth so i love hearing all these details from people's lives.

We moved to Florida for warmer (than Delaware) weather. It is a paradise for growing here once one learns how different the seasons are. I grew up in Florida but did not garden until adulthood.

We chose our current location based on boating but having the rear garden face south was #1 when talking to real estate agents. Amazing that they cannot look at a map and see where south is.

I only owned 2 roses at the time we moved (increased to 30+ now) but they came with us in a moving van full of plants.So happy the effort to dig up everything was successful, it has made our garden so much more enjoyable. Best of all nothing died. (The move was from another Florida city not north-to-south).

I have often wondered whether I would move somewhere "just to grow roses" as #1 consideration. Probably not but I would never move to a house without southern exposure and a garden.

We had an historic freeze this winter and roses were the star of the garden, unaffected and happy as can be. More roses!

Well, roses had nothing to do with us moving to California from Michigan. In fact, when we moved here I could not have cared less for gardening. However, by the time we were ready to buy our first home, seven years later, I was hooked. The homes sizeable (for Califoria) sunny yard had a lot to do with us buying this house. We battle gophers like nobody's business though! I am currently digging up half my front yard to plant more roses. All the roses are going into huge plastic buckets sunk into the ground with extra holes for drainage. It is not perfect for the roses but it is better than a dead rose. I have lost a few to gophers (and most recently a beautiful Red Baron peach tree). Despite the gophers I think my garden space is wonderful.
~Melissa

Melissa- Have you tried those little devices that stick into the ground and are supposed to repel moles, gophers, etc. by sending out vibrations? I've been thinking of getting a few for my mom, but don't know if they work.

The only other thing I can think of that might work, is a couple of barn kitties. They keep everything out of my garden...except the deer :)

I moved into my house 20 years ago because it was close to work. I started gardening on my 1/3 acre a year after moving in, and about 14 years ago discovered antique roses and the rest is history... So, no, roses weren't a factor back then, but if I ever move that will be a prime consideration.
Lori

lavender_lass,

My neighbor across the street was having a problem with a mole digging up his yard. He tried all sorts of things and then got one of those little solar-powered vibrating things. The mole hasn't come back, and it's probably been a month or more.

Lucretia- Thank you for letting me know they do work. I'm going to get a couple for my mom this spring :)

Regarding all sorts of vibrating thingies to scare the pests, make sure that they are not based on ultrasound. Our neighbor had something like that to chase the cats from using his lawn as a litter box - did not work that well on cats, but it was certainly driving all neighborhood kids nuts (since younger people can hear the sound and it is very unpleasant one).

Hey, if it will keep the kids out of the yard, I'll go buy a dozen! ;-)

(Yes, I AM the cranky old lady neighbor!)

I am a native of Panama City Florida, born and raised here. I don't know about living anywhere else. Growing up Mama had a Crimson Glory under her bedroom window...I always loved that rose.
When I quit smoking 11 years ago I needed something to take my mind off ciggies and I remembered Mama's rose. I thought it would be fun to take care of a few and it is. I have around 200, some in the ground and some in pots.
They keep me busy!

Deb

lavender lass
I just use the traps. For me it is fairly effecient. However, if you miss just one gopher it can finish off a rose (or small peach tree)in short order. God help my plants if I go on vacation and cannot set traps as soon as I see a fresh mound.
I have a cat but she is a house cat. She watches in disgust from the window as I muck about in the dirt. She doesn't enjoy getting her paws muddy and gets scared when the wind blows. We do have plenty of outdoor neighboorhood cats that are pretty good hunters. I don't mind them jumping the fence to prowl the backyard. :-)
~Melissa

We had a beautiful acre of lots of oak trees and lots of shade that I could plant dozens of plants in and then not notice the difference - too big! It fell on me to do the maintenance especially after DH got on the kidney transplant list. Then Frances and Jeanne knocked down 12 trees, took out the pool screen and left me really depressed. It was an awful mess. So we went looking at this new small subdivision of cute houses with front porches and small lots big enough to piddle with some gardening but small enough not to kill me - only .17 acre. I never paid attention to the sun, shade or anything since it was winter except that I did choose a lot that had a line of oaks on the back property line, one with a big horizontal limb perfect for a "porch" swing. Well, it turned out that all I had was sun, and I was used to shade and nothing I was planting was very happy. So I asked myself, "What plants thrive in sun?" The only ones I could think of were roses about which I was totally ignorant. Now I have 100 roses on this tiny plot of land. I still can't believe it. What was I thinking?

Sherry

Roses were a factor, sort of, yes...our previous house was on a very small lot, the entire tiny garden was sloped, the size of the living room, and solid granite. If you wanted to plant a six-pack of annuals you needed several hours and a pick.

I did plant a few roses. Took a day to break enough granite to make a hole for each one. The first ones were 'Iceberg', 'Tournament of Roses', 'English Garden' and 'Evelyn'. I still have 3 of them!

Circumstances led us to look for a house on a larger lot. We found one with with a blank slate yard--bare soil and almost nothing else--there were a couple dozen Eucs and a jade plant the size of a washing machine in the back that we removed. It has been roses ever since.

We moved to Silicon Valley for Tom's career. After we had been here a while, I discovered that the original name of this region is the Valley of Heart's Delight. It is some of the finest agricultural land in the country. But you know how the song goes "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot". Yes, that was California that Joni Mitchell was singing about. Well, I certainly do my part to preserve the original use of this land. We are in the foothills overlooking the valley and grow fruit trees, vegetables, grapes, some native plants, and yes, lot and lots of roses. If you look at early 20th century postcards of California you find pictures of lovely old bungalows surrounded by roses, the color hand-tinted. People have been growing roses here for a very long time. I didn't move her for that purpose, but that purpose found me here.

Rosefolly

A long time ago, I used to live where it is warm. I was born in south Georgia and lived there until I was a teenager. Then my parents decided on a radically different lifestyle of living off the land, up in the woods of New Hampshire. What a lifechanging, eyeopening experience that was, to be at that critical age and having to bathe in the brook and use an outhouse because we had no plumbing. And 36 yrs. later I am still not acclimated to the cold winters! We cleared the land, put in gardens, berry bushes and fruit trees and raised livestock, and were quite self-sufficient. I was quite the lonely teen and spent most of my 'rebellious' years gardening. Plants and animals just naturally became my solace, and as I went off on my own and got married I set out to transform my little acre of woods here into my personal paradise. My yard is still where I seek solace and peace. It is tough
growing roses up here in zone 4, and contending with the short summers, japanese beetles and soil that is thick with granite rocks, but I can grow gallicas, albas and all those favorites of mine that I once coveted in the pages of glossy books. I doubt I will ever move from here, even though its so cold. We have the mountains, the lakes, the purest crystal clear brooks, and fall foliage that dazzles. Besides, I could never leave here without my beloved roses....and who wants to dig up close to 400 rosebushes?

Celeste

It has been interesting getting to know some of the background of the people here. There is some romantic history, like Ingrid being married on the veranda of her beautiful home and some surprises, like Celeste being originally from Georgia. All the history of the GW members that responded, has made me appreciate you all more.

My own history is not as interesting. My parents moved to California and they always created a beautiful garden when I was growing up. I was born and raised in CA and have been gardening a few years. I have always loved roses and would not want to be without a rose garden in my world.

Juliet

I loved the house and garden that I had in Cornwall, England. Leaving it was such a wrench. But,I was getting older. Working full-time as well, I just couldn't keep up with the weeding, let alone develop the garden further as I wished to do.
Also, even when I had the time to do some gardening, it was usually raining.
So, when we retired and moved to Crete, I knew I had to have smaller garden and so far it has worked out well.
I must admit, there are times when I want more space to grow all the roses I want. (When it comes to my roses and flowers , I am very greedy). However, I still have a little room left, and the roses bloom for so much longer here. I love knowing that some of the roses that have already been blooming for some time this spring, will still be blooming next December.
The village ladies often come to see how the garden is coming on. They admire the flowers, and then ask me where I am going to plant the tomatoes, potatoes etc. When I tell them that I am only going to grow flowers, they shake their heads and look at each other. I can only imagine what they say to each other about the mad Englishwoman!

I have no regrets about moving here. Just sitting on the terrace, early in the morning in March watching Duchess de Brabant opening her petals, makes me hug myself with glee.
Daisy

Roses didn't affect the move--the move caused me to grow roses. Lived in coastal central Florida for many, many years. Growing roses (especially the ones offered by local nurseries--HTs were about it) was too much work. With the space shuttle program scheduled to end, we managed a transfer to the PNW for work reasons, and found that roses are some of the best, easiest plants for our garden. If we moved again to a place where they were too much work, I'd probably stop growing them. Here we're finding roses that don't need spraying, don't require supplemental water, provide cover for the birds, are lovely landscape shrubs, and have wonderful fragrant flowers for us--not to mention fall color and hips in many cases. I'm enjoying them enough that I have about 200 different ones, plus I'm starting seedlings from my favorites to see what comes about.

BUT--if we moved again, ability to grow roses wouldn't be a factor. Ability to garden--with whatever is easy and beautiful for the locale--would be, but roses aren't a requirement.