The garden always ebbs and flows, things change from year , either by my doing or by natures harsh retort to my efforts. This year a half functioning Morden Sunset is ripped out in favor of felecite paramentier , more seedlings are junked, some are moved, a few peonies, some Japanese Iris, some more natives ect ect.. There are always things to do and Im never on top of it. I lose something everyyear it seems as well, if not roses, than that poor struggling azalea not hardy enough needs to be ripped out, or this year, some of my perennials needs to be gone ect..

If a garden was truly done, would we find it pleasing any longer? I for one wouldnt, its just not the results its the journey that leads us there, the wonderful hours of strained tendons and muscles that leads us to the few moments we adore. We step back and relize our hard work and enjoy them between sips of cold water, just to notice that extra weed or two, that needs to be pulled =).

Silverkelt

It's all about the journey, not the destination...

Oh yeah, I'm in my garden usually averaging an hour a day. I'm always trying to put more in! The garden has really expanded over the years. I've got 6 acres, so it will be awhile before it is completely full! I always wonder if I ever want to sell the house if the large gardens will keep people from buying. They are alot of work but I love it.
Born to till the earth I guess! I come from a long line of farming folk.

My husband gets angry at me because I can't sit out side for long before I get up and start fussing with someone. I have tons of plans to do things and move things around but I will probably never get to them all.

Ingrid, are you wired into my brain or what?? Today after work I would have cut down E Veyrat Hermanos and Sally Holmes for the yard waste guys to take tomorrow except that a contractor came to the house and now it's almost dark. Sally seldom shows any tangerine as was claimed plus I don't like her dark stamens against the white petals. Her flowers always look old. So out she will go, leaving more room for Duquesa and Mary Guthrie. I've already declared my problems with EVH elsewhere.

I'm having second thoughts over the experimental HP's and DP's. Definitely more black spot than I can bear. Lady Ann Kidwell will take about 30 seconds to remove since she hasn't grown a bit. And Bermuda's Anna Olivier has been looking so awful and ratty that I think I can't like her anymore.

So I'm going to take cuttings from Mme Abel Chatenay after this flush and, hopefully, clone a few of her - one for BAO's spot. Then I'll have MAC at the curb on both sides of the front garden. I also did cuttings from Bow Bells yesterday and decided today to take cuttings from Mrs B R Cant since she's presently in total shade (bravely blooming just a little) and on Fortuniana which doesn't bode well for moving. The bush form of Maman Cochet is also looking ratty. Don't know why unless EVH is casting too much shade - or more likely the ever growing oak tree that is south of her. In fact, that may mean Gen Schablikine (right next to MC) is living on borrowed time. Haven't seen many blooms on him since early last year. Don't know where I can move him either. Mlle F Kruger is iffy, too, even though she's really started pumping out the flowers - veggie centers and all. All this means more room for azaleas and hydrangeas, I guess. Or salvia and liriope.

As to the journey being more important than the destination, I think I'm pretty much over the journey thing except for short trips maybe. I'm ready to get there. Does that sound inconsistent with everything I just wrote? Of course not. A little "flighty" tweaking is hardly any distance at all and perhaps will "get me there" quicker than anything. Thanks, Ingrid, for validating my decisions.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

When I was younger I was always changing things in the garden BUT now I have to be content to just enjoy what I have and where it is-----My DH is more than willing to move anything I want moved but his back is not so great anymore either so I try to be content with my survivors.
Enjoy your youth.

Florence

I like your new attitude, Florence. Ahhh, contentment...and survival.

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I am quite prepared to leave my garden alone but it won't let me. Too many roses froze to death or at least to the snow line the last two winters and had to be dug out or replaced with 19 new plants of 10 varieties, hopefully hardier. Weeds have invaded two long borders that had to be made over completely. I've begun to look on some irises as weeds, too. I filled a wheelbarrow with them this weekend. I can't be without irises because of their leaves but they need to be watched constantly.

Raubritter has suddenly decided to climb its neighbour, the Cornelian cherry, instead of gracefully draping the retaining wall below as it used to do. I don't know what to do about this.

Against my better judgment I will open my garden in July to members of the Swedish Rose Society. I don't think I would worry so much about the looks of my garden if I hadn't felt pressed to open it to visitors again. I did once before when the garden was new but I am afraid that with a mature garden people will expect perfection and I can never achieve that. I love my garden in spite of all its faults and hope some of my enthusiasm will show and help visitors to see it with my eyes!

I suspect I have more of the plantsman's outlook than the true gardener's - without the expertise sadly. I don't worry much about the form of the garden and since I have a lot of shade, except in spring when the azaleas are rampant and my major roses are having their fling, I have lots of various shades of green so I don't worry much about color - what does concern me is that things thrive and look happy and since with roses this is at various seasons difficult to achieve it keeps me busy. But I don't take folks out because I don't like their color or to achieve a more poetic look. When I get that look and sometimes I do it is an accident or more likely nature's magic which always exceeds mine. Only death or a step prior to that state or the overcrowding which can lead to death moves me to that solution here - I am rather a fanatic about life actually. My family jokes that nothing at my house is allowed to die.

I am the kind of person who is over the moon finding a snake in her garden - granted a small one but a snake all the same. In downtown Rocky Somewhere that was a highlight of a Sunday spent hacking ivy and trying to reclaim some semblance of order in a very tiny plot that is so full of life that it is sometimes hard to keep any order at all.

Fortunately order is not my goal - just something short of total chaos will do. My garden is not and never will be a showplace, but it is my bliss.

Ingrid- I'm still sad, that you cut down your Cottage Rose, rather than send it to me! LOL

I move things around, mostly because of winter damage and trying to find better places to put plants, with more sun, shade, wind protection, etc. Also, always trying to add more fragrant herbs and plants in front of the roses, to keep the deer out of the garden.

While I haven't been gardening enough to know for sure, I'm hoping I'm one of those people who can get a garden to a certain point, love it, and let it be. I moved my furniture around a lot, when I first moved in, but once I found a layout that worked, it's stayed there ever since...hoping the gardens will be the same.

Lottirose- I'm with you on not taking things out, unless they're dying. My biggest concern is that the plants are happy in their location, thrive and bring in lots of birds, bugs and even the occasional toad or snake. Little garden snakes are fine and we had the cutest little toad last spring :)

Hoovb: "It's all about the journey, not the destination..." and Lottirose: "My garden is not and never will be a showplace, but it is my bliss.". Both wonderful articulations of my feelings.

My garden movement I think is pretty minor, but a constant slow flow. I cannot shovel prune anything - just not in my nature, but I do move plants that are not doing as well as I'd like, or I don't think belong in their current place for one reason or another, to a less obvious place. I find myself moving more and more companion plants, and making more room for roses in the prime garden spots.

The one rose I moved to replace with another (moved a Crimson Glory to put in a Sunsprite instead, as I thought she'd look better there) - I find myself apologizing daily to Crimson Glory as she doesn't like her new spot. I think in future, any roses happy in their spot will remain in their spot, despite my opinion. Daily dead-heading and weeding mostly gives me the sense of activity I need for constant input into my garden. I do keep visualizing more places for more and different roses as I plan to further expand.

One think I have learned about the perception of my garden, is to keep my less pleasant relatives out! I had my cousin and his wife visit the other day, and somehow looking at my superbly beautiful garden (in my eyes that is) through her eyes, dimished it greatly. She had a critical eye, and lots of suggestions on how it could be better. Opinions I likely would have welcomed from any of the true rosarians on this forum, but were not appreciated from one with less than constructive intent.

good grief - of course it will never be finished. What would you do then? Plants die, tastes change, ideas proliferate, fads and whims pop up endlessly. I am NEVER going to be finished - this word doesn't even exist in gardening....it is a process, endlessly surprising, alternatively delightful and frustrating, redolent of all my hopes for the coming years. This is what we do - we garden, we grow, we evolve, we even pass it on but we really do not/can not stop.

*raises hand*

I am incapable of letting things just be. But that's my attitude towards everything, not just gardening. I'm always tinkering with something or the other in my house, my work, my garden, with my pets, you name it. Sometimes I go out to sit on my garden swing and manage to sit still for 5 minutes, then I notice a branch that needs winding or a bulb that needs staking or foliage that looks too yellow, and off I go :D LOL!

Maybe this fall I will have someone move the roses that would be happier in a different place. (I feel sorry for my babies if they are unhappy) Years ago I would just grab a shovel and do the deed myself---It is often difficult to restrain myself but after two back surgeries and two hip replacements I don't have a choice. At this point I'm just thrilled to be able to walk around the yard without pain---

enough complaining LOL LOL------I can still enjoy my roses---which is great
Florence---

I'm visiting my married kids in Alabama this week. My husband, new rose garden, two daughters and cat stayed in Washington.

I drove by my old house and previous garden and said "goodbye for real." My kids are moving and I doubt if I'll ever be back. I resisted the temptation to go sneaking through the yard to take cuttings and see how the louisiana iris, the teas, the clematis, my favorite roses are doing as they approach maturity. It's painfully bittersweet to see it. Sweet, as it's all intact and maturing as far as I can tell, bitter that it's not mine any more.

And in my spare time while visiting here I read this forum and think about the roses that are coming next week from High Country. Even when I'm not there, I can't stop fiddling with my garden, even if it's only in my head. But at least I'm not obsessing with the one I had to leave.

That desire to create beauty in a garden is one I hope never leaves. I hope as long as I live I can at least walk through a garden and smell summer blooms and air and sun.
Gean

Gean---I felt a little sad when I read about leaving your garden but you have a good attitude and your new roses will also be rewarding----My DD is going through a sad divorce and she is very sad about leaving her gardens especially the roses I rooted for her and the azaleas my DH started for her along with all the bulbs she planted some with memories (one from her late best friend) it is very sad for her but I try to keep up her spirits by telling her she can start new roses when her life gets settled---

Life brings many changes and we have to bend like the Willow .-----

enjoy your visit and keep us posted about your new garden

Florence

I don't think there is anything in the very least wrong with what you are doing Ingrid. Don't forget, a garden that is "finished" is dead. Why should you put up with something that doesn't satisfy your decerning eye?

As usual your comments have been fascinating, thoughtful, varied and uniquely you. It does seem that most of us, to some degree, are in a state of constant flux in the garden. Lavender Lass, I had the same experience when decorating my home as you, but I think the difference is that furniture doesn't grow and sprout and get bigger and sprawl into its neighbor, or develop disease or get uprooted by gophers. The garden almost forces us to "do" things with it to some extent, unless we're content with a lawn and a clipped boxwood hedge (fate worse than death). Pam, your comment gave me instant validation and peace of mind. Thank you!

Ingrid