I'm not sure how any plant, including roses, could be considered "gawdy" or "garish." Bright? Yes. Colorful? Yes. Festive? Yes. It's not like you sprayed glue on them and then doused them with glitter :P

Yard art is another story and to each his own on that :)

I'm a confessed garden "plopper," and colors, no matter what they are in my garden, don't clash for me. I guess I don't dwell that much on the subject :)

Sherry, do what makes YOU happy. BTW, I love your garden :)

Eric

Rules change in the reaches.

That pretty much says it.

My 2 cents on "tropical" colors: I have noticed that the stronger the sun the brighter the colors tend to be in flora and fauna.

The tropics have brightly colored fish, birds, tourists (lol) as well as incredibly colorful trees and plants. What we have in sub-tropical Florida is very special and roses are part of our colorful garden. In fact rose colors that look cheezy in more northern climes fit right in here.

Sherry you are so lucky to have rain this summer. We have had none. The thunder sounds and lightning lights but it rushes by to more inland destinations. My garden is more desert than tropical in rainfall with lots of humidity thrown in for fun.

Florida is a state filled with so many different climates it boggles the mind. Over in the GW Florida Forum we share what works for us with one another to be better gardeners.

Here in the Rose Forum we can share our love of roses but cultural information is a hit or miss. I value your advice highly since you are in the same battlefield (mites, poor soil, etc).

It's exceedingly hard to be gaudy with heirloom roses and you aren't anywhere near that neighborhood. Keep showing us your roses and telling us how you did it. I can only hope mine can look 1/10th as good as yours someday.

Denise
Englewood FL (south of Sarasota)

Dumb me, I should have read the "Waldo" thread before responding to this one. Now I understand, Melissa was referring to the hot pink periwinkles as gaudy not the Vesuve rose.

Yes companion plants in Florida are challenging because they are so multi-colorful and provide a flash of color in a green tropical landscape that is what many Florida yards are most of the year,

With so much rain that you have (lucky) please try gaura again. It is a wonderful plant, airy and in light pink and looks wonderful with roses. However it gets big and can overwhelm a young rose. Mine is planted well away. I LOVE it even more than salvia, it's more romantic" looking and bees love it too.

Denise

Sherry,

Oh dear, it looks like I chose the wrong word! I'm sorry it distressed you. 'Gaudy' is derived from the Latin 'gaudium', which means 'joy, rejoicing' ("Salve, o venusta Sirmio, et ero gaude gaudente...") and in my personal vocabulary it doesn't have the negative connotation that the dictionary assigns it: unfortunately, the dictionary definition has precedence, and you couldn't know how I meant it. Language is used to communicate: I forgot that. Please forgive my blunder.
You're right on about Florida, however. Growing up in Florida, its landscape and flora were my normality. Later I learned other landscapes, but I've always remained aware of how fundamentally different, and wonderful, the landscape of my childhood home is, and a part of my heart will always be captive to it. If you're going to have a good garden in Florida, it's got to be on Florida's terms. It won't look like England, or Italy, or much anywhere but where you are. This is true for all of us, but our ideas of rose gardens are based--as you said--on different models, and that makes the task harder.

Here is my idea of the questions to ask when designing a garden. I'm leaning heavily on Henry Mitchell.
What do your climate, terrain, diseases and pests, water availability allow you to grow?
What do your available space and considerations such as neighbors' rights and neighborhood rules allow you to grow?
What do your personal resources--money, labor, others--permit you to do?
What is the purpose of your space? What do you do in your garden? What do you want to do in your garden?
Aesthetic considerations: these are what make your garden different from all other gardens. What is beautiful to you? What plants do you love? What do you want your garden to look like? And, less personally, and this is another limitation, what are your design problems and how do you solve them?

Most of these questions are limiting ones, that is, they lead the gardener to exclude certain options, and I don't know whether that sounds discouraging. I like limits, myself: they reduce my choices to a reasonable number and set me tolerably clear problems to solve. Limits can be very exciting: look what poets have done with the sonnet form through the centuries.

Perhaps I should add that I have practically no Latin. It's good for vocabulary, even if it gets me in trouble sometimes.

Melissa

Just like Florida, California also has micro-climates. Where I am is temperate, but 20 minutes away in the San Fernando Valley, it is blazing hot.

I agree with Melissa and Sherry that we can appreciate the differences in every garden. It would be boring if gardens lacked the individuality of the gardener.

Juliet

Juliet has it right.
Our gardens must reflect not only our own personal preferences, but the place where we garden.
THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!

Gaudy. Well, look, I LIKE rather gaudy things.

We grow things like epiphyllums -- which can be remarkably "gaudy." We love them.
All around us are bougainvilleas of remarkable gaudiness, not to mention vividly-colored
geraniums, and vines that bloom in wild colors.
We LIKE that.

It's Southern California, and this kaleidoscope of plant forms and colors belongs here.
It's part of what we are.
We like it that way!

Jeri

Hi Sherry -

Dorothy L. Sayers, one of THE classic English mystery authors, wrote a book titled "Gaudy Night". It is set in Oxford, at an event referred to as "The Gaudy", which seemed to be a gathering of alumni (or in this case, of alumnae) of different class years. So your thread here led me to look up "gaudy" in the dictionary and see if there was some reference to that usage. There was, and it is from Middle English and means "joy" or "to rejoice", as you said, and it came to mean "a feast", especially an annual university dinner.

So I think you should apply that meaning and think of your garden as a feast of roses and other plants that you find pleasure in. After all, that's why we all do it: for pleasure.

Laura

Sherry, your post is remarkable in its expression of what is a fact of life for gardeners, a fact that often goes unexpressed and, to the detriment of many gardens, unnoticed. Someone once called it something like "the genius of the place" and it refers to what that place's essence is, how that essence is expressed, and how it should be honored. I had to smile at your mention of "weedy-looking plants" because that's how I've often described what I like. Mediterranean garden are often filled with those kinds of plants. My advice to you about plants that look like lavenders was completely wrong. Those plants don't like to live in your climate and look alien. I've tried to think about what I would do if I lived in Florida and had old roses. Given my taste, I'd probably opt for surrounding the roses with lots of lush greenery and very little in the way of bright flowers. But that's ME. Part of the thrill of gardening in a certain place is finding your own voice. I feel that you're completely capable of doing that. In a way you're fortunate because your garden in not part of a few acres of native Floridian landscape. I have to be ever cognizant of fitting my garden oasis into the background of the wilderness surrounding it and that guides and ultimately limits my choices. You have a bit more leeway, and your biggest challenge will be to find old roses that have enough "presence" to live happily with other plants. I do think the best gardens are those that have limitations which the gardener has overcome in a creative and wonderful way. I firmly believe your garden is going to be one of them. And, along the way, feel free to ignore advice from anyone who lives at the other end of the country and doesn't have a clue about what looks good in Florida (that would be me).

Ingrid

Sherry, you indeed were right on when you said we are kindred spirts in our gardening tastes and colors. I choose hot, bright colors not only for my roses and perennials, but gravitate towards those colors in my clothing. I have always loved color.

My daughter just graduated from college with a BFA in...what else...ART. She landed a job teaching 2-8 grade kids and I hope she passes her love of color on to a new generation of kids. I can't paint, can't draw worth a hoot, but I can paint my 'yard' as my canvas with roses and plants. I guess I passed my love of color on to her at an early age!

I've traveled to Florida several times, most recently Key West (love that place) and the light is so intense, the air so clear, that it DEMANDS brightly-hued red, pinks, oranges, and fuchsia flowers.

So pleez keep on painting with those Florida colors that I love, you're doing a spectular job!

Your kindred spirit (and who also has a pink flamingo or two in her garden),
Terry

I am reminded of a show Lynette Jennings (the decorator) did once. She had people all over the country send her a sample of their dirt. It was amazing - almost blue, grey, white, orange, red, tan, brown, black. Her point was that the climate we lived in made a lot of difference in how we used color. A New England saltbox house would use different colors than an adobe house in Arizona. Same is true of our gardens. I have tried numerous times to design a 'romantic, soft, garden' with pastel tones, but what inevitably turns out is a 'bright, colorful (gaudy to some) garden'. I have one space that I have reserved for only white, pink and purple plants. People never notice it, even though it is the first area you see when you drive up. It's a 'secret' garden in the open! That's because here, like in Florida, the 'hot' colors are what grows, thrives, and shows up well in our clear-skied, red-soiled, hot region. If we lived elsewhere, our tastes (and our soil) (and our gardens) would be different.

Oh, you guys are wonderful. What exhilarating responses you've given. I must pat us on the back. We're a GREAT group!!!

Eric, apparently you don't have an anal bone in your body. Oh, the joy and freedom of being a plopper!

mad_gallica, I loved your quote, and you're exactly right.

Denise in Englewood, you have a settled and realistic view of our environment, and I felt your peace with it as I read your post. It seems incredible that you haven't had the rain that we've been getting, and you're 3 hours away. Whether it's El Nino or La Nina, I hope it pours down that lovely wet stuff on you and your garden soon. I tell you, it feels splendid to get rain every day again. I had started thinking that daily rains were a thing of the past. And you are very sweet to say such nice things.

Denise, I really did love gaura when I grew it. So gentle and delicate fluttering in the breeze. My roses are getting bigger so I will definitely use it again. I didn't know to stake it before so it really took up a lot of room flopping over. In fact, if memory serves, it's leaves are on the gray side of green, aren't they? Too bad I let 3 of them die. :((

Melissa, you very definitely chose the right word, because I learned a valuable lesson. Maybe if I had scrolled down further, I'd have found the Latin definition which is truly exciting. How amazing that one word designates a thing as tasteless or joyful. I wonder when, who and how the change happened. And thank goodness for Google! ("Greetings, O beautiful Sirmio, and rejoice in your master rejoicing") You're right that limitations are good. They teach us to deal with the reality of what we have. I was going to say open-ended anything is a recipe for failure, but that is exactly how I started, having no framework to ask your excellent questions. My garden and nature have forced the limitations on me. Just as I am not self-disciplined, I am not self-limiting either. DH can attest to that. But I will have to ask myself your questions and see where they lead me.

Juliet, you're right about "the individuality of the gardener". It is the key to all of gardening. And everything else.

Jeri, "the place where we garden", i.e., the place where we're put and usually have affection for no matter how much we complain about soil, drought or humidity. We grow to like it and accept the limitations that come with it, and then as human beings, we make the best of it. Cool!

Laura, never heard that one either, but I like it. That Merriam dictionary is a real downer. We should rejoice in the feast (tastefully). Lookee there. Feast and taste. Seems like the one who changed the meaning of gaudy was trying to limit our enjoyment of the feast by redefining tasteful. Or something like that.

Ingrid, I guess that's why people try to make English gardens in Florida. They haven't taken the time or had the time to find "the genius of the place." It's one thing to "drain the swamp" or "flood the desert" and make the garden you want. It's another to work with what you've been given and rejoice in it. I think you have the great capacity and the genius to make any place beautiful. Gardeners use a combination of mind and heart to create beauty where they're planted. Whether they could do that in another different place is a question for the ages, but we're very adaptable creatures so I'm guessing you could even garden in Florida, happily. Your challenge of the "background of the wilderness surrounding" your garden is about as different from an English garden as mine is. And though you say you don't "have a clue about what looks good in Florida", you have good gardening instincts and wisdom, and I will always want to hear what you have to say.

And that goes for all of you.

Sherry

Being originally from Ft. Lauderdale and hopefully returning one day, I had to chime in.
In the ten years I've been lurking on this forum I've learned that people here are collectors rather than landscapers. Me being one of them with about 100 roses in North Carolina. I never think about complementary companion plantings or color combinations. It all seems to work for me, or is a 'non-issue'.
But...when I return to Ft. Lauderdale, I don't think I'll grow (or try) roses there. It is frustrating enough here in North Carolina. I'll probably grow tropical gingers and curse the Iquanas (that roam freely and eat all the vegetation), instead of the deer, and keep an eye out for 20 foot pythons coming in from the Everglades.
Every region has its challenges.
Jim

More on gaura:

sherry said: I didn't know to stake it before so it really took up a lot of room flopping over. In fact, if memory serves, it's leaves are on the gray side of green, aren't they?

Leaf and stem color on mine is more burgundy which matures to green, no gray. Mine is 3' high and 4' wide but staking isn't needed, it's self supporting.
It's a nice complement to those dependable colorful periwinkles.

Denise

Here is a link that might be useful:

Denise, mine didn't look like that photo. It was tall (4') and thin with 3-5 stems, and the flowers were on long wire-like threads that extended out from the top of the stem like a baby's mobile hanging over a crib. And the tall stems leaned over after a while.

Sherry

Mine was not compact either but I like it's "airiness" on the long stems, lending a romantic aspect instead of a bedding plant. I think they get bigger and better in Florida ;-)

Yes mine leaned over too but in all directions like a fountain, arching gracefully in a circle.

But isn't funny that we all want to grow things that don't really suit our climates and yearn for exotic plants wherever we are? Exotic in the sense that they come from far away places.

In india where they have all kinds of gorgeous fruits that are too tenderskinned to ship abroad and quite unknown over here, a boy I met was talking wistfully about the apple orchards of Kashmir in northern India. I would pay a lot for a ripe Madhu Alphonso mango but I will never get the chance in Sweden.

This summer my patio plants are cannas, agapanthuses, purple leaved cordylines, all of which I have to overwinter inside. I like the effect but I am well aware that they don't look as good as they would under a hotter sun.

The August issue of The Garden, journal of the Royal Horticultural Society has an article called "Welcome to the jungle" about a lush 'exotic' garden in East Anglia, not the warmest part of England. Four pages of "the giant leaves and riotous colours of tropical plants".

I recall a man in Louisiana telling me proudly (when he learned I was from California) that he had actually grown agapanthus.
And a friend in Olympia, WA took me into a big municipally-owned glasshouse, to show me proudly a small bougainvillea.

In both cases, people trying to grow things that, apparently, didn't want to grow there.

But, to me, that's akin to me trying to grow Gallicas, by piling ice cubes around 'em in the winter -- and it's too much like work.
Instead, I grow salvias, brugmansias, and plumerias among my Teas and Shrub Roses.
And those things grow here trouble-free, so it's easy.

Jeri

Jeri

Rules change in the reaches.

Somebody reads Ursula!! :-)

I had a good laugh - thanks Sherry . I laughed because MY rose beds are gaudy , tacky or what ever they might be called - not yours .

Mrs . BR Cant and Emmie Grey have companion plants of okra and Asian eggplant . The okra are over 5 feet tall ! When I go out each morning and eve to pick veggies or bugs off the leaves , there are the roses with their cheery " Hello ! " The purple eggplant are a wonderful color contrast to the roses as are the big yellow flowers of okra . And all this is surrounded by old , recycled cattle panels !

Another bed with three Pink Pets in constant bloom , is filled with sweet basil . When I go out to dead head , I brush against the basil and a delicious smell is now forever linked with this petite pink rose .

Louis Philippe is out along a pasture fence where the cows nibble what they can get and help me keep Louis trimmed . Cows adore roses and devour any trimmings and the roses like the aged manure .

So you see , your beautiful well tended beds so artfully arranged are a very far cry from my tacky , country , shallow and vulgar slap dash look of my rose gardens . If I had any pick flamingos , they'd be right in there along with the roses .

You rock and make Ocala proud !

gatormom, talk about laughter! Now, "slap dash" wasn't mentioned by Merriam, so I suspect you're a few steps up from simply shallow and vulgar. And that purple eggplant is a wonderful haute cuisine touch. I find Okra rather tasteless myself, but to each his own. I like the idea of using basil, because I love the smell, too. I'll have to add it to my companion plant list. You need to show us photos, and don't forget the moo cows. If your cows love roses, they definitely have taste! Your garden sounds like the perfect one for Florida. Louis Philippe on the edge of a cow pasture - how much more Cracker can you get??? Really, I will now forever picture you as a pioneer woman, gatormom. Very cool!

Sherry

This is an interesting thread, Sherry.
For years, I tried to grow "Florida" type sub-tropical plants, because I love that lush and colorful look.
In my climate, I suffered one failure after another, mostly because we don't have that much rain here and not as much humidity as you, so the plants fried even as I was a slave to the water hose.
Over the years, I've come to my senses realizing that I live on the urban prairie. In my landscape, I now know that I should be enjoying china roses (they are superior for here) mixed with Texas Sage (cenizio), Red Yucca, herbs, Purple Coneflower, etc.
And in the more sheltered areas of my back yard & patio, I can grow a small collection of the less-adapted plants & roses that I also love ... with no afternoon sun & a water hose close by.

Thanks for sharing your well-expressed thoughts.

Randy

Oh, Randy, I wanted to buy some Texas Sage today. It was very pretty. How big does it get? I liked the suede-like leaves and blue flowers. It was a charming plant and quite different. Unfortunately, it was quite pricey - $10.99 for a large 2-gallon plant.

If you want to go Florida, I guess you'll have to install a backyard misting system. :)) Boy, it was hot here today with low (45%) humidity, and I was walking around nursery yards and greenhouses. Sweat city!

Sherry

Sherry, this has been a very enlightening post, and I've enjoyed it all. Also, I know now what my front yard is. Laudy, Laudy, 'bama Gaudy. hugs, Gean
{{gwi:300458}}

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Hey, hey, hey, I'm starting to feel quite comfortable with gaudy, but, Gean, yours falls into the sub-category of "lovely gaudy", i.e., "temperate-zone gaudy" which is a whole different thing that some people wouldn't even call gaudy since it is just so plain gorgeous.

Thanks for posting your photos. I'll definitely keep them in the back of my mind as a template to use. That'll be a laugh when we compare photos! Oh, sorry, I'm supposed to be walking proud in my gaudy garden, but really, are you sure you didn't cut them out "Fine Gardening"?

I don't see any Periwinkles either.

Hugs back,
Sherry

Sherry, there are tomatoes in the monarda and basil with the roses. The vast number of bright yellow marigolds causes people temporary blindness as they drive by. I didn't even show you a good pic of the tall un-color coordinated zinnias that I love, especially because the goldfinches perch on the stems and eat the seeds.

There is no color coordination except the white border of sweet alyssum which has now all gone to seed. It's all fading, withering and turning to brown. While I'm frozen you'll be still growing those periwinkles.

Well, I stand corrected. Now that you mention it it is pretty garish. (Yeah, right.) I can definitely see that we need some group therapy on this forum. All we see in our own gardens is the "ugly" spots, and all everyone else sees in our gardens is the "gorgeous" whole. Popping color here and there adds interest and keeps the eye moving. I thought I hated gold flowers until I mistakenly got some gorgeous bright golden yellow daylilies. They are the best things in my garden. I love them. And with no other yellow in sight they add a lot of zest. I may even have to get some yellow lantana because the daylilies are done. :((

I wasn't just blowing smoke. Your front garden is really beautiful. Now say thank you and believe it, cutie. And I'll do the same.

Sherry

Sherry, thank you for the compliments.

Off topic, though, one thing I was getting at is that when my garden is frozen and I'm looking with longing at the green mustaches of my neighbors, you'll still be posting pictures of your roses and periwinkles because of your subtropical climate.

And don't we love it when the Australians post in February when most of us are counting the hours until spring? That's not what your topic is about, but still, something to think about. rose friends forever, Gean

Oh, I see now what you were getting at. I have the same problem in my back shade bed with the hydrangeas that grow there - only sticks in the winter. Right now my front beds are pretty bare due to the roses reaction to the heat even with all the rain we've had. So I'm adding and/or moving azaleas to the front rose beds. They're a dwarf variety, Red Ruffle, that likes the sun. In fact, I have them now in the shade (where all 'normal' azaleas like to be), but they don't bloom. When we built the house, I told them where to plant them never even thinking that they would be in total sun, but they did great and rebloomed sporadically in summer and fall. I moved them to the shade when the roses came. So now I'm going to put them around the roses and the edges of the circle similar to boxwood. They're only about a foot tall so they won't hide much of the bare canes, but they'll always be green.

February and the first part of March here is the pits. Everything is dead looking from the freezes we've had. The deciduous trees are bare. It's pretty ugly, so I know what you mean, but I don't have to deal with it as long as you do. My ultimate location would be Hawaii or Tahiti where nobody has a clue of what winter is. I like the temps but hate the dreariness. At those times even the Periwinkle with be a mushy mess, but thankfully, it does come back. Do you have holly or some other evergreen shrubs in your beds to give you something to look at besides dreary dead looking plants? This has made me rethink my roses. A one-plant garden (which you don't have) can be very bad at times. But it's a process, and I'm not done yet.

Funny how northerners escape the cold and gray to Florida quite often in February when we're at our ugliest - but I guess Disney World is never ugly.

Sherry

Sherry, usually about 6 ft. Sometimes to 8 ft.
I like the soft leaves too. Feels good to the touch.

Randy

Whoa! It's a good thing I didn't get it. Wow, that's some plant! Thanks, Randy.

Sherry

Randy, I have two plants of Texas sage and for the first time since I got them they're covered with flowers. Gorgeous. A great plant when most of the other plants and roses in that small area are "resting".

Duchesse, your garden is not gaudy but GORGEOUS! If you think of that as gaudy then please keep on being gaudy. Roses look so much better with companion plants and you've created a lovely picture. Please post more photos.

Ingrid

Ingrid, the Texas Sages here are in full bloom too. It happens a few days after a period of rain ... that's the trigger that sets the bloom flush off.

Randy

Ingrid, thank you; the gaudiness or joy or plant lushness this year is a combination of composted horse manure and a whole lot of rain. The companions were plopped and they've grown together into a colorful gaudy whole. I am grateful, really.

I like gaudy as it's been defined in earlier postings. I admire your garden and dedication to making beauty in hot dry conditions, just like I admire Sherry and her love of roses and her garden also.

Gean

As an aside... Gaura should not need to be staked. It fills itself in and makes a... a puff. I love it. It's a wonderful "filler" that adds vertical lightness among the more defined and heavier plants in my garden.

The plant in the link is probably a single plant that has been in the ground a couple of years:

Here is a link that might be useful: A pink Gaura

Nickelsmum, I don't know why, but mine didn't grow bushy like that. It was taller with individual stems that got big and heavy and flopped.

Sherry

Older gauras must be pruned if you want that shrub-like form. Otherwise they start to sprawl.

Here is a link that might be useful: Caring for gaura

Thanks, Rosefolly, that's a very nice site. I'm going to check out the rest of the site later. It looks very educational.

Sherry

Sherry, I can think of three things. One, it was a newly purchased plant that hadn't filled in yet. It fills in pretty fast, though. Two, it was in shade. Three, was it an unusual species? There are many Gaura species and maybe some are less fluffy. You said it died even with water every day, and that suggests to me it was recently purchased. Once established it is actually fairly drought-tolerant.

*** You said it died even with water every day, and that suggests to me it was recently purchased.

nickelsmum, the one's that died were recently purchased and still in pots. I should have put them in a spot completely out of the sun, but I didn't.

Sherry