I have never grown Gertrude Jeckyll, but my experiences with Austin roses--Lillian Austin, Tradescant, Golden Celebration, the white version of Heritage--have all been positive. Do you want more of a shrub or a climber? If a shrub, I could not recommend Lillian Austin more strongly. If a climber, go outside the Austin box and seek out 'Dr J H Nicolas'--it's a classic, medium pink, delightfully fragrant, and the globular blooms would harmonize well, I think, with Austin roses. You'll have to seek out a specialty rose grower to find them, hopefully own-roots. If internet searches don't turn up something, find a grower whose customer service people have a copy of the blue book for roses--it's comprehensive. Good luck!

I can relate to feeling like I have no business in the garden. More often I realize that I needed a staff. Not just me and mom doing what was left alone to its own for the past 20 or so years. Most of the trees have an emotional connection for my mom; my dad planted them and they used to sell the fruit at our fruit stand or the local swap-meet back in the day (now there is the farmers market but that takes yet more time and energy to join) Finally after 6 years and countless loads out I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But that just leads me to more things to do better or change. I set goals, and regularly miss them because a new garden misadventure pops up to deal with. For example, we have guarded several peach trees because mom thought they were also good ones. We have half a dozen peach trees, most of them planted themselves I believe. Some of these peaches are now getting ripe-small white ones, mom picked a bunch of peaches and spent a day at the sink peeling and slicing them up and when she was done had 3 quarts canned. She called to tell me she was done with those little peaches. I thought I would try canning a few too, maybe it was more being 89 that made it take so long and get so little. It has nothing to do with age! Those peaches bruise if you look sternly at them, have 1/4" of good flesh and taste...mealy blah. Now we both have a crook in our backs and I have a few more peach trees to make in to fire wood. They are beautiful in the spring, so I may leave them for now, but remove all the fruit once it sets. Funny, even the worms do not like those peaches. I do have a list of a few new trees to replace them with, peaches that do well here and that do not all ripen in the same week. Guessing much like Florida, there is no off season, no time to sit back and think of the next years garden projects or look at how wonderful the past season was. It is warm out, weeds are growing, fruit is waiting to be picked, something needs water and more needs pruning. The more you have in the ground, the more there seems to be to pay attention too. On the other hand, we can add living space to our homes by using the garden area. Places to sit on a hot day or zones to soak up the sun on the cold or the best spots for catching the sun rising or setting. If we were stuck indoors in the snow, we would loose those spaces for months at a time. I am off to re-stack the wood pile, seems I need more room, to reach the roots of an offending peach tree and to fill buckets with small mealy peaches. I might even have time to stop and smell the roses

If you want to look at the Upton Grey gardens as a sort of living museum, the "unnatural" and "time-warp" comments are irrelevant. Many aspects of life as lived a hundred years ago would seem that way today: fashion, social conventions, etc. GJ herself would have been an anomaly, an independent thinker, and unmarried, though she did have the support of her well-off family. As a private garden for even the most enthusiastic gardener of moderate means, it's totally impractical. Could you imagine doing the tennis lawn maintenance she describes annually? In that sense, the time warp comment is apt. GJ was designing gardens at a time when household servants and gardeners were still affordable. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) it was around WWI that social changes in Britain made it impossible to find household help cheaply. I'm struck by the author's commitment to see the project through and admire her courage. She made a lot of mistakes (some of them over and over, inexplicably, like the pond debacle and the repeated planting of cannas too early) but you've got to give her a lot of credit for putting herself out there and risking embarrassment before the stream of gardening bigwigs who came to see her efforts in the early years. I personally don't think I could live with the restrictions she puts on herself regarding plant materials. Her strict adherence to the original plan and plant selections are the only way to give garden visitors a look at an authentic GJ garden, but I'm sure the designer would be using modern improved varieties if she were alive today. Especially with the thugs and disease prone roses. Yuck. Jo

Hi there @ Campanula: thanks for checking in "Roses for English gardens" personally I think La& Ro is a very bad companion combo, but the best garden lore ever, as every lanscaper looks shell shocked if I point out that it is a bad combination (for the Lavender or the rose...) and combining the more civilized Polyantha hybrids is tricky, still fiddeling and testing... (and too little space for species roses) @ mad gallica: thanks or the story about those potpourrie, who`d have thought, this stuff has certainly come a long way, but sadly, no resemblence with the present day perfume-scented artificial stuff, those real rose petals and LAvender. Perhaps a good christmas gift for 2019. I did do a quick Amazon search, and while I avoid ordering stuff from them (with the bad employment conditions and stress in those ware houses) I do buy ebooks. and lo and behold, they stock some old Jekyll-books, the optics are like that of a very cheap and bad paper back, but the text is ok, and I won`t complain if a volume costs less than 2 bucks. So, a new direction to search into, thanks again, bye, Lin