I also live in east Texas and I have a long fence row in full sun behind my horse barn that I am starting to landscape. I have placed 5 crepe myrtles [pink, lavender, white, purple, red] and between them I have planted old garden shrubs [Mme. Cochet, Mon. Tillier, Francesca, Perle d'Or, Mme. Berkely and Mrs. BR Cant. Climbers include Reve d'Or, Lamarque, Juan Desprez and Pleasantrie. I plan to expand the bed with edging stones and include daylilies, throw in sunflower seeds, zinnas for summer, poppies for early spring. I would suggest the star jasmine vine for green leaves all winter and divine smelling flowers in spring. This is one of my favorite vines. I started out by dumping old stall shavings/manure on the fenceline and letting it rot. That done....trees and roses were planted. Next I intend to topdress the whole bed with mushroom compost/bark mulch and will hopefully have time to lay the edging stones next week. Then will hit Jack Carpenter's dayily farm in Center...if you havent been there...you really should go!! As I expand the bed width wise, I will probably add more roses....but these big shrubs will be the background and the climbers will be lovely. I particularly like Lamarque - it is a young plant but blooms all the time. I will also probably stuck in perennials and then small pockets of sun loving annuals. I have a water spigot close by so it will be watered regularly. Hope this helps!

You could plant a mixed hedge of various evergreen shrubs, or mixed evergreen and decidous shrubs, including roses if you want, and plant climbing/rambling roses to scramble through everything (I have a hedge of box and pyracantha with 'Alberic Barbier' and 'Goldfinch' finally starting to grow well through them). Or you could have the hedge with trellis above it. At the foot of the hedge you could plant all kinds of smaller things, of course. All this would represent a fair amount of maintenance, though probably not worse than your projects.
Good luck!
Melissa
P.S. I adore roses, but I do firmly believe that they look best growing with large numbers of other plants.

Thank you both for the suggestions. I first wanted white crepe myrtles because I think they are gorgeous and they grow very well here but they are just sticks in the winter. :( I might have to plant a few anyway because I LOVE them. I will look into a few of the everygreen shrubs and see what I can figure out.
Thanks so much. I'm open to other ideas if anyone has something to share.
Sunny

If you plant Tea Roses (See Alameda's list) they can be allowed to grow tall and broad, and they need not be pruned down -- and should then provide privacy throughout the year.

We did this with a row of Golden Celebrations, fronted by a row of "Grandmother's Hat," but those are probably not good choices for East TX.
By all means mix perennials in the bed.

Jeri

what are crepe myrtles - i keep hearing about these. They are not Lagerstroemia or Kolwitzia are they? Certainly don't sound like the myrtles I know - communis, small, evergreen, scented white flowers or the tall myrtle with beautiful peeling bark (Luma?)

If you go with the one large cascading rose approach, evergreen Lamarque sounds like a good idea from Alameda. But if you aren't quite sure about Lamarque, another one you might be interested in is similar to White Lady Banks, but it doesn't grow quite as vigorously and it reblooms in a favorable situation: Purezza. I believe that it would be evergreen too.

The few tea roses I've had over the winter were evergreen here even over this unusually cold winter, and they seem wonderful to me in every way, including using them for cutting.

Marie Van Houtte is one of the large teas that apparently has grown well all over Texas fairly unattended. Its writeup in the "Landscaping With Antique Roses" book by Liz Druitt and Michael Shroup is quite attractive too. Probably many of the large teas would be wonderful there.

Your deciding "problem" here sounds like a pretty good problem to have!

Best wishes,
Mary

Here is a link that might be useful: Purezza at Vintage Gardens

I have horses, myself, so I'm glad you know oleanders are poisonous to horses, but so are yews, rhododendrons and several other plants and shrubs. You might want to have your trellises and roses combination a little away from the property line, which would open up a greater variety of choices...as long as the plants don't reseed. It's a good neighbor, who takes the livestock next door, into consideration, when planning the garden :)

Whatever you decide on, it sounds like it's going to make a beautiful focal point and a wonderful privacy screen. I hope you post pictures!

I think crepe myrtles may be that "Lagorstroemia". They are called the 100 days tree or something to that effect b/c they will bloom all summer long if deadheaded. They come in any shade from watermelon red to palest pink and white. The bigger ones have beautiful shedding bark for winter interest. They are not fragrant but have also been called the lilac of the south b/c the blooms look similar. Uninformed gardeners will perform "crepe murder" by cutting the branches back to upright sticks to force a heavier bloom on the top of the plant. But this practice makes hideous gnarled limbs that must be cut off each year after the initial butchering. They are best left alone with only tip pruning or deadheading. I have several crepe myrtles in my yard and our town is full of them.

Sunny, if I were undertaking this project, I'd first try to decide what I want my color scheme to be and then choose roses and companion plants accordingly. If you were choosing a cool color scheme such as pink, white and lavender you could have a rose such as Mrs. B.R. Cant, a climber such as Lamarque and perhaps lavender crape myrtle and some lavender and white companion plants and polyantha roses in front. For a warm color scheme you could have Reve d'Or for the climbers and Monsieur Tillier and/or Clementina Carbonieri and yellow and purple irises in the front. If you can decide on the color scheme first I imagine rest will fall into place more easily. I think this is a very exciting project!

Ingrid

Hello from East Texas! I second Pyracantha. And some roses will remain evergreen - Lady Banks, Mutabilis, etc. I love the jasmine idea, but mine froze down to a nub last winter. Crossvine is also a favorite vine of mine. Provence lavender (would do great in your sandy soil) and dianthus are some smaller evergreen plants for you to consider.

I hope you will post pictures. What an impressive project!

If you like your roses fragrant, I'd consider New Dawn for the climber. It'll go 15-20 feet, is generally quite healthy and robust, and can even take a fair amount of shade.

Hi everyone! I've been so busy. Our slab was poured yesterday which is SO exciting! I am SO thankful for the ideas. I plan on warm colors for this area. My heart loves the pinks and lavenders but I'm doing a large garden area off the back of the house and want to do a Monet style garden in front and several shade gardens as well so in my mind somethig a a little more vibrant there would be nice. My sister has a pink and purple bed off of her back porch and it's so relaxing so I'm going to copy her.

I like the coral, apricot and soft oranges but from what I'm reading there isn't as many to pick from for my area.

Alameda - I really like the idea of jasmine which I can plant on home made pilars and I've spent a long time looking at your list. There are several that sound perfect. Your area sounds a lot like what I'm hoping for. In my previous house all my beds were lasagna beds made from home compost, horse manure and other yummy stuff and my flowers looked like they were on steriods!

Melissa, I had never thought of Pyracantha but that would give some good visual interest and a good contrast to the softness of the roses and other things I'll put there. I have many daylilies, gorgeous lilies, and some other things I'll add here as well.

Jerijen - I prefer the natural look so would like them to grow natural.

Campanula - you will LOVE crepe myrtles. They come such lovely colors and a dwarf variety which I've never grown but plan to now. And yes the winter bark is lovely.

carolinamary - I LOVE Marie Van Houtte!!! When my sister (who MADE me become addicted to OGR - lol) visited ARE in Brenham I fell in love and each adn every photo I see makes me love it more. Would the colors work if I went more neutral since it has both pinks and yellow? She could be a deciding factor in what is the main attraction there. Although it's exciting I'm a little overwhelmed by all we have to do. Thank you for the link. What a beautiful flower!

lavenderlass - I smile when I see your name. I will post pics soon. It's nakkid land now and so much sand a friend of our said it looks like we're building on the dunes! I've grown beautiful azaleas, too so will put some in my shade beds.

buffington - aren't crepes gorgeous! I only trimmed the tops of mine in my last house and they were HUGE. A friend bought them for me as a house warming gift and I had 5. We lived there 19 years so it was bitter-sweet to leave them.

ingrid - thank you for making one of the most important points which gives me direction. As much as I love the pinks and purples I love your ideas for these.
"For a warm color scheme you could have Reve d'Or for the climbers and Monsieur Tillier and/or Clementina Carbonieri and yellow and purple irises in the front. If you can decide on the color scheme first I imagine rest will fall into place more easily. I think this is a very exciting project!"

holleygarden - I didn't realize there were so many East Tx people here. HI neighbor! My sister has Mutabilis and she loves it...so it's on my "want" list, too. My DH is French (born in Germany and raised in France) so lavender would be great. I love the scent and it's soft form so that's a wonderful idea.

I'll post pics later today so you can see my 'BEACH"!!! LOL
Thank you everyone!
Sunny

I may have missed it, but how close are you planting to the neighbor's pasture? The reason I ask is his cows will eat your roses...or at least the buds and blooms. My aunt can't grow anything (including roses) next to her cow pasture due to the cows eating anything and everything and leaning into the barbed wire (breaking the posts down) in order to get to her plants.

You mention you have sand sand sand so my suggestion for you is to get some roses grafted into Fortuniana which does well in it.
There aren't many places that offer OGR's on Fort. stock but coolroses.com in Florida is one (and I wish they offered more different ones). They do carry several Austns however.

I have heard that they will custom graft if you provide the scion but also heard it can take 6 months to produce.

Good luck with your project.

Sunny, I was going to suggest Fortuniana as a climber. It's only a once-bloomer, but it laughs at sand, and it's well foliated and gets big with leaves similar to jasmine. The big teas would be great. Just let them grow and get big as a house! Mutabilis will get huge, too. Your line of roses and crape myrtles sounds fantastic. Crepuscule especially likes to grow horizontally, I've heard.

It's going to be beautiful!

Sherry

Sunny, I just had the thought that you might want to look at Vintage Gardens on-line and have a look at their teas, chinas etc. When you click on a name a pop-up will tell you the color, and many of the roses also have photos. Each rose is labeled with a number which corresponds to the size descriptions under each rose, which are explained in detail at the beginning of each rose section (teas, noisettes, chinas etc.) It's also a great company to order from, although you might prefer a vendor in Texas such as Chamblee's or Antique Rose Emporium.

Ingrid

>I'd like to eventually make deeper beds with more roses and other lovelies but for now I just want to get these started. Our soil is SAND SAND SAND. Did I tell you we have SAND for earth??? I will ammend well and it's nearly 100% sunny.

Hi Sunny,

I've done some more thinking about your situation and enjoying imagining doing some landscaping there...

We built our house too, a very long time ago. I know you've heard this plenty of times already, but it's so true: the best time to do planning for major things is when you're building, so plan ahead now and do as much of that as you can now, while it will be cheaper than doing it as a separate job. We did do that, for the most part, but there came a time when we couldn't afford to do everything that might have been wise to get done right away. We did plan ahead, however, and saw that it would be smart to make some design changes initially based on plans for the future.

If you haven't yet run out of money for last-minute inspirations, consider ordering some truckloads of screened red clay dirt now, or, as they call it around here, "screened red dirt." Manure, etc. will be excellent amendments, but it does tend to decompose and when all the organics decompose the soil will still drain too easily. Adding some clay now in planting spots would make all the plants a lot happier, even the azaleas, and especially the roses. The trucks can bring in the dirt now much more easily than they ever could later, after you've started landscaping and have plants in the way of having the delivery trucks bring the dirt back near the spots you have in mind for using the dirt.

If your builder has any equipment there already that can shove dirt around, also consider having some extra dirt shoving done to create some three-dimensional spaces so that no matter how flat your yard might have started out, you have some berms and slopes to create focal points and a much more interesting yard. The best architects for houses think of interior space in three dimensions and that's true for landscape architects as well. It's *hard* to do this kind of work yourself later (Guess how I know that???) but doesn't cost any noticeable amount more to take an extra half hour on the part of the operator of the front-end loader to scoop some lower areas and pile that dirt into higher areas.

Imagining now... If the front-end loader is around, here's one scheme you could try: create a path including some (brick, etc.) steps down into a sitting area surrounded by higher berms all around, so that as you look around from that lower seated garden focal point, you see a longer cascade of blooms than you could see surrounding you on flat ground. Brick steps detail: extend some brick spots laterally to sit large pots of evergreens and perennials on.) Another possible feature: use rosy berms to line portions of each side of a path, so that you feel a bit as if you're walking through a scooped-out hallway of roses, or even better, roses and evergreens. Some camellias can take full sun well and would provide some nice foliage contrast. Kanjiro and Shishigashira would both work there.)

>carolinamary - I LOVE Marie Van Houtte!!! When my sister (who MADE me become addicted to OGR - lol) visited ARE in Brenham I fell in love and each adn every photo I see makes me love it more. Would the colors work if I went more neutral since it has both pinks and yellow? She could be a deciding factor in what is the main attraction there. Although it's exciting I'm a little overwhelmed by all we have to do. Thank you for the link. What a beautiful flower!

The short answer is YES.

Your yard is so large that you have many opportunities for developing multiple garden rooms. So you aren't constrained into an either-or kind of color-scheme choice here as if it would be your only place for roses. What a luxury!

It might help some if you can come to some conclusions as to whether you prefer a single-colored bloom color scheme here or something with much more contrast in the color choices. You might like both a whole lot, and you're lucky in having that large yard with more than one spot that is appropriate for roses. If you narrow the thinking down to just this one area, though, think a bit about what your favorite kind of color scheme is....

I can easily imagine being happy with the pale yellow (that Marie Van Houtte primarily is) combined with other roses that bloom in a yellow, including a yellow so pale that they might be considered warm whites (like Lamarque), or something with that same general overall off-white feeling like Buff Beauty. The pink area on the blooms of Marie Van Houtte doesn't make a noticeable contribution to the whole feeling about the color most of the times of the year. In a one-color scheme, make sure to have variations on foliage sizes, forms, and textures, as well as variety in the bloom forms and sizes. I've been planning on a Ghislaine De Feligonde to go near some Mrs. Dudley Cross varieties, so I'm guessing that they'll look good together, and that the contrast in bloom size as well as foliage types will be nice. Belmont Yellow is a polyantha rose that is closer to white than yellow unless you are looking just at the buds, and it would easily fit into a scheme like that too. If you really end up wanting a noticeably yellow place, some Julia Child roses might be really nice too. For little dots of white: Little White Pet, or for little dots of yellow: Rise 'N' Shine. If for any reason you want a smaller version of Marie Van Houtte, Mrs. Dudley Cross would be a good choice. (Similar gorgeous blooms, and not a small rose either; just smaller and very low in thorns.)

If you decided to take off on the pink edges of Marie Van Houtte, some roses that might go well: Duchesse De Brabant, Le Vesuve, Maman Cochet, Belinda's Dream, Pink Rosette, Climbing Pinkie, Renae, Annie Laurie MacDowell, Carefree Wonder, Carefree Beauty.

If you get in the mood for spectacular contrast with Marie Van Houtte, Red Cascade on the arches might do the contrast job nicely in multiple respects. Other ideas for plants that aren't roses: Little Gem magnolia, and all types of Japanese maples. The crepe myrtles in either white or pink would be wonderful. The magnolia is evergreen and can become a tallish focal point too.

Well, Sunny, I hope you have a really good a time imagining your yard's possibilities and planning!

Best wishes,
Mary