Looks just fine to me!

Jeri

I think so many times we're our own worst critics. But I'm so sorry that you're not happy with your garden because your opinion is what matters the most. Your furry friend at least is beautiful!

Ingrid

You see the flaws. Others see only the beauty. And a cute dog like that is a wonderful distraction.

Boy, Patricia, it's kind of odd how a "disaster" garden takes such a beautiful picture. How does that work? Love your dog. What's his/her name? Better rose days are coming!

Sherry

Now now Pat...I think we all know better than to think your garden is a disaster!!!

I think that I realized (through visiting Carol's garden) that I have a LOT more room than I once thought. I also realize how nice it is to have fragrant roses easily reachable. I have a new vision for my garden which makes my current space seem sparse and less cozy.

Having said that...I also know that my garden makes me happy in as many ways as it makes me want to work harder.

Your garden is surely lovely Pat, you might just be a stronger critic right now because you have visited other gardens which had other ideas and plans. This happened to me too. Don't be sad....

And BTW....I had the BEST tine with you all. It was an absolute joy to have your company and to share in all that glorious food. I am still stuffed!! You are welcome anytime and I hope you take me up on the offer!

I hope you got your furry baby a breakfast treat to curb the separation anxiety. ;o)

Miss ya already!!

Patricia,

There are garden years when everything seems to go wrong, at least to the gardener, and life (in the garden) is just frustration, boredom, and fear. Then the next year comes, and the garden starts anew. You sound like you've been having an unusually bad year--though I agree with other forumers, that picture is awfully pretty!--but things will improve. And going to see other gardeners is good for everyone and everything. Glad you had such a happy trip.

Melissa

Patricia, I read your post and then scrolled slowly down, wondering why you would take a pic of a white picket fence. That, I thought, would have been a sad thing to have as the best thing in your garden, although at least your picket fence has a good coat of paint on it (unlike mine!). Then there were the flowers and your pup, and I just smiled in sympathy - we're preparing for Pamela to come visit our garden and I spent the day today fretting over every little thing that isn't perfect, especially the dog holes. We're really all so blessed. And you're right, friends are at the very top of the list, right there along with our furry friends.

Lucky you to visit such wonderful gardens! I hope that you're looking at what's blooming in your splendid garden and letting go of what's changing. Sending you warm thoughts,

Sue

Attention please: It is now confirmed that Carol has some secret weapon steroids that she uses on her roses. Manure? Whatever, they were glorious and big and her beds are gorgeous. I got some Beau lovin too.
Carol, you have done a terrific job with your space.
Ronda, the work you have done is rewarding to the eye. You DO have more room than you know, so start ordering!
Praise the lord Jimmy finally got his Derry fix.

Carla

A little RED bird told me that y'all were visiting. I hope you brought dog biscuits, as Beau needs some treats from time to time.

I also hear that your visit was a good time for all.

Carol's garden is beautiful and packed with interest. But Pat, I know your garden has got to be beautiful, it wouldn't dare be anything but.

Carol

If a garden you are unhappy with leads you to make some wonderful friends, is there really a problem?

And that is 1 beautiful pup.

When I walked into Carol's and Beau greeted me with those big soulful eyes, I knew he was a sweetie. I have seen him before but never had a chance to be with him one on one. He and I escaped the heat together. He is like an old friend.
Derry is gorgeous, as always.

Carla

To me every year the best things are friends. They are what complete my garden.

Perhaps I could have stated it better, but my meaning, Pam, was not that friends and family do not always count as the best thing about gardening, but that my garden is so bad and my friends' gardens are so much better, that I prefer seeing their gardens, but still the best thing about my garden this year is my friend, Derry, who is pictured here.

After losing all my grand noisettes and having such bad weather for 2 years, my garden is taboo and we will have no tours this year. Therefore, no friends but Derry in our garden.

I do appreciate your response, however, and feel honored as it is the first time I ever recall your responding to one of my posts.

my e-mail is down right now, can't send but can receive

Carla

Patricia, I do know how you feel. Funny thing is that letting people visit your garden when you feel like it is a mess is sometimes a blessing. I think my garden looks awful this year with it's blackspot and PM but I was able to see some of the things I have done in the garden and some of the roses with new eyes when you were here. Paula told me one time that I need to stop being so critical of my garden and I think she is right. It was such a joy to see you stick your nose in one of my roses and see a look of delight pass over your face, to have you ask me which clematis or iris is that, and to just generally seem to feel comfortable and happy in my garden, that I took a look around after you left and thought maybe it doesn't look that bad after all :-). I know that the RRD and die back on your noisettes has been discouraging to you but there is still so much that is right and beautiful in your garden. And you know the favorite saying of gardeners is "maybe next year...." LOL. I love you, loved having you here and thank you for giving me a new perspective on my much less than perfect garden. Btw, I visited Ronda's garden today and I love it. So pretty, so peaceful and I felt right at home there. Isn't she the cutest thing? I pointed out a few areas I felt like NEEDED another rose.

Carla, thank you for the kind words. Truly, it's just manure. No secrets. I'm glad you could visit the garden and Beau. He always loves a good belly rub.

Carolina

P.S. to Pat
Derry will always be the most beautiful thing in your garden. :-)

Sharing our gardens with our buddies is what makes the garden complete isn't it? I guess that's why we all congregate here because we love showing our gardens and seeing everybody else's.

Last year was a "bad" year in my garden because the freeze did a number on a lot of my stuff. This year is like nirvana. I can see the difference in everything. So we live for the "good" years and live vicariously through others in the "bad" ones lol. Although I must stay we're always striving for something more.

I promised you some of my daylily seedling but I'm a doofus and I need you to come and give me a lesson in dividing! I've never divided my daylilies before. I thought it would be like dividing a hosta and I dug the clump up ready to stick a shovel in. Well it was a seedling and somehow it wasn't like separate clumps. It was like all the fans were fused and growing from the same roots! I tried to cut off a few and got no roots with them and they've shriveled over the past weeks and died. I will try again in the fall.

Derry is just beautiful!

Pat, the last few years my garden has been halved in size. excavated halfway to the centre of the Earth, covered with scaffolding, full of unreachable weeds . . . roses have been uprooted, beaten down, tractored, moved and moved again. Lawns have become muddy fields, beds have become fields of grass. Flower beds have been replanted, then dug up and built over again. It has seemed like it will never be settled.

We just get on with it :) Friends come by - some come thousands of miles - and we do the best we can. My little patch will never rival the splendour of some of our friends great gardens, and I've long got accustomed to having people see my backyard the same day they visit Mottisfont Abbey - talk about 'humbling'!

All the years I've known you - there have been problems and disasters and disappointments. But you are still Lady Pat, and you can see how much everybody cares about you. The fact is, whether your garden is great one year or less than that another, it's all still a Work in Progress, and it is the doing of it that is really important.

But what could be better consolation that visiting Carolina's little patch of Heaven ? Lucky girl!

Best wishes
Jon

Patricia, I don't see ANYTHING wrong with your garden! I think it's lovely. You're dog is a beauty too.

Sandy

Patricia how could I have not reponded to your posts? I'm amazed at myself. I certainly read most of them and consider you one of the most important people here. If you've ever felt disrepected or anything please forgive me. It's just unintended airheadedness.

Patricia,
Your garden even with the losses is still beautiful I'm sure. You can come to my house and feel a lot better about your garden (and probably your house keeping too, lol) : )
Your Derry is a cutie.
Remy

Patricia, I love your garden helper ...the best of your garden. We can always depend on our animals for unconditional love. As for the garden, I am sure it is lovely although you see flaws. I sometimes wonder if one is ever pleased with their own garden. I for one would certainly like to do many things differently in mine.

Pat---sounds like you had a wonderful time with some treasured garden friends---What could be better !!!Sure wish I could join all of you---Maybe sometime if I ever get well.

I have seen many pictures of your garden and it is gorgeous.---.
PLease don't fret---and if we just have only one fragrant bloom it will make us happy.

My house and garden will never be the way I want it---LOL

Florence

Well, this is what is rattling around my brain right now, so for good or ill, I'm going to share it. I hope it is pertinent and not too odd. I did think you would like it.

This is an excerpt from the introduction to a book called Gardening for Love by Elizabeth Lawrence. It is edited correspondence she had with rural gardeners she met through the Market Bulletins, free pulp magazines that several southern states published for farmers. Patricia, you probably know about them. I've learned that Alabama still publishes one.

Ever since the Second World War, I have been in correspondence with the country gardeners who advertise their flowers in the southern market bulletins, and who garden for love. Their love shines out in the mere listing of the names of the flowers. These hard-working women, who always find time to answer letters from other gardeners, belong to that great fraternity, The Brothers of the Spade. In 1735, Peter Collinson of London wrote John Custis of Williamsburg,

I think there is no Greater pleasure than to be Communicative and oblige others. It is laying an obligation and I seldome fail of Returns for Wee Brothers of the Spade find it very necessary to share amongst us the seeds that come annually from Abroad. It not only preserves a Friendly Society but secures our Collections, for if one does not raise a seed perhaps another does & if one Looses a plant another can Supply him. By this Means our Gardens are wonderfully improved in Variety to what they was Twenty Years agon. pp. 23-24

(from Gardening for Love, the Market Bulletins by Elizabeth Lawrence, Duke University Press, 1987)

I think that the information we share in this odd internet way is something akin to the letters that were shared among people who have been gardeners, and the preservation of old roses through information sharing something akin to what Mr. Collinson wrote about in sharing seeds and plants.

And the kinship the same among people who do now and have before, gardened for love. Brothers of the Spade, don't you like that? Gean

Duchesse---that was lovely !!!!!

Florence