Yeah, it takes a few years. What gave me pause was being sick or injured and not being able to do everything I wanted to do and seeing the roses suffer (although I thought my spring flush looked great because I DIDN'T prune).

I had a new house with a blank slate, so I did go a bit crazy, but I love it now. I think the beds I put in after 2-3 years look better than the original ones. I am constantly thinking of changes I can make. And yes, there will be rose turnover.

harmony. a great post, and giving me pause.

I tend to have an addictive personality, obsessive. And, although I have grown some roses for ten years, the addiction is at an all time high right now, and has been for a year or so. WHy? many things, little children are now teens, I need to be home and available, but not shuttling like I once did. Some other hobbies have faded, and my eyes are set on what I can do, and do well...at a few years past my prime. And, I am finding the quieter hobbies of art and gardening such a calming, and pleasurable time, that, I see it growing.

I do ponder the days, when, I hate to admit, I will be more focused on perfecting the bloom, and not amassing more, but, my vision is of a garden full, creatively built, utilizing my somewhat limited space to its fullest. I am expanding into a potager garden, and really see, right now, no end in these dreams.

Do I feel I have enough roses?? Yes, I do, I read of some that I want to try, and will try. I am more liberal with passing a rose on to a new home, JUST cause I don't love it's flower...Cinco de Mayo, Distant Drum, Betty Boop...have all been passed along, together with several knockouts.

But, while I may add 20 or so more roses, not much more, I don't think...I will constantly have an eye for how I can improve my garden...I realized that I will never be done with it....that one is never really done with many things...we grow, we change, things ebb and flow, and the garden will never stop. So, while I feel some contentment in the roses I do have, some will HAVE to be tried, one day...and when age creeps in, and my abilities decline, I hope to have my garden at a point, that it's own maturity will suffice for the work I am not able to do.

It is an interesting journey, and one that in all my life of gardening I have not had...from perennials and natives, to vegetables, nothing compares, and if I were to live somewhere roses didn't grow well, I can't think of what I would be able to replace them with...there is something about the hard wood, the thorns, the ironic beauty versus bloody thorns!! the scent...the history, the mysteries...the names...idk, roses couldn't be replaced.

But, I would say my love is maturing, I know more what I like and don't like. I love the journey, and I feel at more mature area than I was once...but, never, will I tire of this hobby, I don't think. Only when my bones are too old to carry me will I quit!!

While, I could have written almost any of these posts, I am still searching... But am much more cautious about my purchases,, Since, I have a local (10miles from me) wholesale rose nursery that sells many old var. (out of patent) for 5$ in the winter months and 8$ during the summer months, that are very healthy and vigorous--I feel like I can afford to SP anything, that I don't love... I have been collecting roses for 2yrs and have 80+, getting close to the "how many more can I care for" question! I look for roses that look great in the garden and in the vase! I love gardening and I am sure I will soon be collecting companion plants for all my roses... It seems like it's always an adventure with me... and I love the search and much as the find... Thanks for making me feel so welcome on this forum..

a thoughtful post, Harmony, and one I wanted to respond to carefully as you touch on some issues which have profound implications for how we live our lives. Without wanting to be hectoring or bullying,(how unlike my usual tone), it is clear to me that we must begin to address excessive consumption. Yes, I am fully aware how economies function and if we all stopped buying things, the results would be catastrophic but nonetheless, many resources which we currently take for granted, are not infinite and, as a species, we need to accept some limitations. We live in a world where we are frequently identified by what we have, particularly regarding 'stuff' (property, shoes, cars, and so on), a wildly aspirational world where we are encouraged to aquire and display artefacts and possessions which demonstrate our standing in this world. For those people without the means of getting and having, poverty is an ugly word which implies failure on deeper levels than merely going without 'stuff'. So, Harmony, to recognise your limitations with grace and equanimity is, to my mind, a way of stepping a bit more lightly on the earth and finding joy in what we have instead of what we want. Hope I am not sounding patronising when I say good for you and hoping you have many years of pleasure ahead.

But camp, excessive consumption aside, I don't disagree with you on that...one can garden without consumption in the buying sense, one can exchange cuttings and seeds for free, forming friendships and networks of a non-dollar (pound? euro?) value.

The human brain's propensity for forming addictions, or at least habits, is what fascinates me.

Here is a link that might be useful: the power of habit

I've been growing roses since back in the mid 1970's. Over the years the count went from 8 bush's to nearly 200. For someone in the Drywall trade working 8/12 hrs a day 6/7 days a week, my garden slowly became work. Don't get me wrong, I totally enjoyed the garden and the ability to give away bouquets all the time. We exhibited all over Florida for 20 years. Won our fair share of everything and made tons of friends along the way. When I retired and moved up to the east face of the smokies in N.Ga back in late 08, I lade out my garden to handle about 75 to 80 bush's. It's been a slow process but everything is still on target for about 80 bush's by next spring. This way I can enjoy each bush and what it has to give to the world. Growing a little bit of everything, yet still growing a good amount of what I REALLY love (HT's 28 bush's). I've enjoyed the journey every step of the way and have done my best to keep "outside" problems outside of the garden. As long as my garden is a place to enjoy and not something I fret over, I'm a happy man:)

I have been growing roses for over 35 years. My interest has waned and waxed over the years. I have had as many as 60 rose bushes, but now have pared it down to around 30. I was first interested in only HT's then OGR's and now have a mix. There are some new ones out there that I would love to have but don't want to get rid of the old ones and don't want the extra work. You get to a point where you feel comfortable where you are at. I still get excited when I get the first flush of blooms and I smell the wonderful scents. I will always love roses but don't feel I have to have every rose out there. I now enjoy touring other people's gardens and living vicariously through them.
Clare

I have three beds in two locations.
Where I once had four dozen roses, plus or minus, in the three beds I now have two dozen and the way it looks two to three more will go belly-up for no reason that makes sense.

In the largest bed I had apprx. two dozen some roses planted sixteen inches apart, mostly Hybrid Teas.
Last week I roto-tilled between the rose bushes to break up the extremely hard soil.
I knew that would not do the existing roots any good but did it anyway.
I do not know why really but having lost so many over the years and fighting the hard ground plus having roses that were extremely healthy in the fall die the next spring after coming out of the ground looking great influenced it.

I was pulling Tulips that had been in the ground too long and was going to roto-till that bed for fall planting but looking at the roses, I just kept going right through that bed.
Not deliberately ruining any rose bush but I would bet one or two of the scrubs that just seem to never die or get big may become grill fuel.

I will replant. Probably almost with the enthusiasm I had when I decided Mom's rose beds needed a major face-lift, but some times, as much as I love flowers, when between the vegetable garden, Raspberry bushes and rose beds things just seem to become a work of frustration and labor where once one seemed to have a green thumb, it can get to one to the point of asking one's self- why am I doing this.

I think maybe it's natural to go hog wild the first few years of any passion. I know I did. I went from 16 roses to nearly 150 in two years. But space, money, time and energy have all run out now. I'm down to about 100 and that's plenty. I'm pickier now about what I want and what I'll buy too. As my earlier free for all picks go I'll replace them with more care. So I still get to satisfy the urge to buy roses but just fewer and better ones.

harmony, everything you've written could have come from me, except that I think you've said it better than I could have. There is this natural progression, which starts with a sort of frenzy where you want everything and can hardly think of anything else, at least until reality sets in and you find out that not every rose loves your garden. You continue to accumulate and learn, and it's a wonderful time of watching the roses grow. I'm now in my fifth year and have some large roses and also some small ones to replace the ones that didn't work out or the ones I realized didn't really make me happy. I have 86 roses now with two European tea roses arriving from Vintage in 2013 and I'm very happy to stop at that number. With time there may even be fewer roses as everything grows larger. I've lost that feeling of wanting more and more and instead feel at peace and very happy with everything I have. It's a very good place to be.

Ingrid

Gosh - everyone seems to settle on somewhere between 85-100 roses. I have 85 and am quite content for the time being. I keep having visions of another separate planting of maybe 6-8, but we'll see ... I've gone back and forth over the years. I let them go native for a few years and then came back to them - lost 5 in the process, but have replaced 3 of them.

I have about 30 roses, due to the limited space for landscaped area, my own time constraints etc. I doubt that I will every have over 50. On the other hand, the area for roses is small compared to the space for plants that make food.

Before I moved to my new home, I had already decided that my limit was 50 roses. Ha ! As a housewarming gift, a nursery I had done a favor for gifted me with 150 roses. I did end up give many of them away and now am down to about 100, if you count the unidentified roses.

I just learned that a friend has propagated 8 more roses for me. Altho' in my heart I am pleased because I do like all of the roses, the other part of me thinks about all of the prep work I have to do to fit them into the garden. I am going to make sure that 8 roses leave the garden before I plant the new roses.

I am already working too hard, for my taste, and I want to make sure I have time to enjoy the garden.

My progression was very obsessive when I started and I dreamed of having a rose garden with the roses in the ground instead of in containers. It takes a rose 4 years for a rose to finally become a productive and beautiful plant in this garden, so it takes a lot of work and a lot of patience.

Altho' I do grow other plants, it's the roses that call my name. I, too am learning to enjoy the roses growing in other people's gardens.

Smiles,
Lyn

Very good post, and it's interesting to hear what people have to say. What Suzy says is worth the most serious consideration.
I'm confused on the subject. First, I've been gardening for over twenty years, and am on my third serious garden (there have been some minor ones in between), which I've been working on for about a decade now. Currently I have about 350 varieties of roses and about 500-600 plants, not to mention hundreds of other shrubs, subshrubs, perennials, and so on. The garden is currently about two acres in size and will increase a bit more before we stop expanding.
All this is to explain my situation. My garden is many things to me. It's a plant collection, with emphasis on old and older roses; I'm particularly fond of the once-flowering old roses which are so little grown in Italy, and of the Teas, also little cultivated. It's my aesthetic experiment, my lifetime work of art, my form of creative expression, and I can't put into words how important this is to me. My garden is also a long term experiment in low-impact gardening. I want to see what happens if I grow roses and other plants with just water the first year, mulch, pruning, weeding, cutting the grass, and not much else. The results have been encouraging enough that I keep on going with the same basic practices.
In terms of consumption, my conscience is in pretty good shape. The land the garden takes up was grassland, some of it very weedy and poor, marginal areas given over to weeds, and one part, the shade garden, was a mixture of brushy woods and swamp and the site of our predecessors' burn pile and dump. Our fertilizer is the old hay we use as mulch, a local resource which would otherwise be simply thrown away. The water the garden uses, not a lot, is balanced out by the increased fertility of the soil and greater volume of plant material growing on the land, which also inhibits landslides, which are a very real consideration on our property. I've introduced exotic plant species, but also look for and introduce local native plants to the garden. If I haven't made it clear before, this is anything but prime farmland I'm gardening on, and it would be either grass, brush turning to woodland, or weeds--all three locally abundant--if I weren't gardening there.
My husband and I plan on expanding the garden, and we're in a hurry, as he's my chief labor force and is currently in his late seventies, and won't be able to dig planting holes and steer the motor scythe forever. We get poorer every year and I don't see how we'll be able to hire anybody to do the work he does now. Everyone has a limit, or so I suppose, and I suspect that mine is somewhere in the neighborhood of 600-800 varieties of roses. But I don't know whether we'll get there before our resources, of money and manpower, give out. I'm wondering if I can't borrow a horse to be a living lawn mower: I'm told they eat only grass.
The money isn't that big a deal. Some people buy clothes or go to the movies or eat out; I buy plants, at moderate expense. I also give and receive a lot of plants, and this cooperative aspect of gardening is one of its aspects that matters to me. But I certainly do wonder at times why I'm dedicating my life to a garden that no one ever sees. This is frustrating, and it also offends, quite deeply, my sense of thrift. I will feel my garden has been a failure if it remains unknown and never touches anyone's life, no matter how beautiful I succeed in making it. It's too much for one person alone to enjoy.
I'm familiar with the sensation of greed, and it's an uncomfortable feeling. In spite of the ambitious scale of my garden, my desire to keep working on it doesn't feel like greed to me, not quite, and I certainly have thought about the matter. Could I spend my life more usefully? Quite possibly, as the chief practical result of my decade of labor seems to be that two acres of dirt are more fertile than they were before. I could be earning money, perhaps, staving off starvation and power cutoffs in my old age. That would certainly be useful, to me at any rate. As far as the work I might do is concerned, how many people do truly useful work, work that benefits society? Would I be doing something more globally useful if I had a job in advertising, say, instead of going out right now to shear grass and vetch in my rose beds?
So many questions, so few answers.
Melissa

I meant to add that, as well as money as a limiting factor, more importantly in many ways, is the investment in time, effort, energy. True, Melissa, I often wonder about the futility of creating a little patch of loveliness which does little, ultimately, to benefit anyone except for me (and my jam eaters). I don't own the land I garden on and I do it with an uneasy knowledge that developers have been casting covetous eyes on our city centre allotments for some years. At present, I am thankful for the grow your own craze zweeping the UK as it would be political suicide for the council to sell off our allotments for yet more student accommodation (my lord, you should see the huge buildings of hamster runs for this purpose, currently defining Cambridge's once graceful skyline). Bulldozers will have no respect for the fruit trees and roses and I have to admit, it is ultimately a fairly selfish indulgence. Even so, although I may not be contributing much to the betterment of the species, I am definately trying not to trample over anyone else in the raising of fat tomatoes and fragrant flowers. At the very least, I am keeping skills alive (I would say a huge amount of gardening knowledge currently resides in the hands of middle-aged (ha!, ever the optimist) amateur growers like myself) and if I can pass any of it along to the next generation (and I am bribing, threatening and lecturing and so far, all of my offspring have greenish thumbs), I will consider the effort worthwhile. Me and Mr.Camps have a great time too.

I am enjoying this thread. I have a background in psychology, and know that gardening touches us all (me, anyway) in deep psychological ways. For me, gardening is nurturing. Giving care to something, doing what will be in it's best interest. Yes, like children, selflessly at times, but the reward being, the pride of standing back and watching the child (or the rose) bloom! Watching it come into it's own, in it's OWN way, one that we have nurtured, but only been able to somewhat modify.

Gardening requires patience, and knowing that results won't come swiftly tests me time and time again.

Why do I do it? Why do I enjoy it?? I guess I love nature, and beauty, and challenge, and depth of knowledge, and RULES that are set, not by me, but by God. Rules that I find, hit or miss, like in life.

There is also for me a barely conscious desire to enclose myself within the walls of my garden. To be alone with nature. I can't really explain it, but I am now seeking the privacy of my backyard garden...some parts vanity (to be able to weed and prune and deadhead in the morning in my pj's with a cup of coffee without joggers and other passerbys noting 'the crazy lady in her pj's every morning'). And some parts I can't quite grasp. So, once I am able to enclose my back area from our iron fencing, I think I will be at a stopping point.

Replacing rather than expanding...and not at a frantic rate.

Much depends on age and health, I believe, and at 51, I can still pick up a bag of compost or two. But, just like my years of tennis obsession, the realization that I will never play at Wimbledon, must be grasped and enjoyment MUST come in being where you are at the present time, as if your eye is always on..."I will enjoy this WHEN I get to 'x' point"...then the present isn't enjoyable. So, I realize I will never have EVERY rose or THE most beautiful garden, and accepting those limitations, just like other limitations in life, IS calming in and of itself!

just my musings of the morning...

I would like to add something to the value of a garden that a few have touched on.

My mom is 88, other than a bit hard of hearing and having just had a cataract surgery and needing one more, she is in excellent health. One doctor recently told her a 22 year old man would love to have her blood test results. She is very careful about what she eats. But I think much of her good health is due to her being out in the yard. Not sitting in front of the TV or talking with friends about health issues like so many elderly do. She walks on uneven ground, helps with her balance. She uses a hoe and a small shovel to help with her bone density. But more importantly, she is outside seeing positive things happen in the yard. She can look forward to the next season of gardening as well.

Me, I have put in some hard years cleaning up the lot, but I am making a place that I can enjoy hopefully til I am 88 too

I would also like to comment on the value of our gardens, because I feel that even if they aren't necessarily bringing something to our species they can help many others - and at this point in history I think it's the other species who really need help.

I feel like my gardens will hopefully serve as a seed of biodiversity to help balance all of the monoculture I am surrounded by, living in wine country I see acres and acres of grape vines every day, and though others think they are beautiful I am disturbed by the uniformity. I love roses, but I also take care to plant natives and other plants that the bugs, birds, and other animals need. One of my main goals in gardening is to create a little ecosystem filled with as much life as possible, and when I admire the work I have done I do feel like I am contributing to the world in a meaningful, if small, way.

As far as reaching a time when I no longer feel a need to add more, I am not there yet. I am still in a stage where I want to create more, I have lists of roses and other plants that would like to have in my own garden some day. But I don't let the desire for more stand in the way of enjoying what I have, I am determined to enjoy the journey.

As I wrote above, the garden, as a whole not just roses, has reached a love hate relationship, even though this year I have more desire than I have for several years.

For me the fact I prefer HT and the effort it takes to get them through the winter is a major factor in why I am deciding whether I will or will not go from three to just two beds.
I buried them the past winters but even with that I lost some and the vast work that involves (especially with new roses where one has to be careful) has me wondering if increasing by dozens more really makes sense.

To defeat the hard ground, (which is full of nutrient values so that is not a problem) I am considering raising at least one bed up to the top of the railroad ties that border the bed. (In an odd sort, the roses that are right next to the ties seem to be tougher than nails, as when I was righting one this spring the old main stem popped and I was suddenly holging the rose in my hand out of the ground roots and all.
I stuffed in back in and gave it some root boost and it is as healthy as if nothing happened.)

The trouble is raising the bed means I will have to shovel trailer loads of compost and dirt into raise the bed at least eight inches and then wonder how many roses will be dead by next year and some of these are over twenty years old.
Every year for over a decade, I would put in a vegetable garden next to the roses and my father would say-"IF you are going to put in a damn garden, then you damn well better take care of it" well that is where he would spend hours every day.
The doctors told him he would be fortunate to live to seventy but he died just short of eighty years old.
I think that garden kept him going those extra years.

We have a similar situation growing camellias--only the hardiest varieties will survive in our yard. And, they need raised beds to get enough drainage--I visited the US National Arboretum to see how to properly site them--they plant them near the top of a hill--which provides both shade and drainage. Building everything all at once is just too much, as you say. So, I opted for small plants in small raised beds, which will be converted to a large raised bed next year...