Ingrid, I like your ideal garden--you have practical as well as beautiful choices there.

All roses in my present and future gardens must be bs-resistant to some degree. Gypsy Carnival is my one exception at the moment--I love it so that I can't bear to spade it up, but it sure is a disease-magnet. Fortunately, quite small plant. I really should toss it, however.

My ideal garden would have to have some Austins: Munstead Wood, Lady of Shalott, Queen of Sweden, and at least one (or more) climbers. It certainly could have more Austins, but I might want to try out some of the newest ones that come out each year--like Boscobel.

I like the strip along my driveway: repeating pattern of Elina, Peter Mayle, and Mrs. Laing--so I'll keep that.

My hedgerow out in front along the property line--Home Runs--I'll definitely keep them.

And I have to have at least one (or more) of the first rose I ever planted: Kordes' Eutin. I'm superstitious about that rose--have had one in every garden I've ever planted since that day.

Oh yes, Buff Beauty by the back fence--she's a show-stopper when she blooms.

Now that I think of it, I'd probably replant just about all the roses I have now--maybe try out a couple new ones, but basically I like my present selection. I think maybe I've gardened enough years that I've gotten rid of the ones I don't like or that are so-so, so that all that are left are ones I really like.

I am trying to figure out where I could squeeze in a new Boscobel however. Too bad the utilities buried cables (years ago) in my backyard--limits where I can plant roses. : (

Kate

I might have moved the entire row a few feet back from the front walk to put in a low brick and iron wall to keep the soil off the sidewalk and add a bit of color to play up the green leaves but I'm not going to disturb them now, they are doing too well. Maybe one of these days I will.

Some area I have reworked with success. You just dig them all out and pot them up and then proceed. I haven't missed any that found new homes and I really needed to space the plants better than I did the first time. They are much happier now. Also, changing from a mixed row in the front parkway to an entire row of Pink Rosette was a good idea. I did not want to dig up the minis but it worked out so well in the end. Don't be unhappy with an area that's not doing what you wanted. It's better to resolve it and be happy again.

I Did have to do it all over again when I left my home and 40 acres in the hands of my eldest son and moved into a snug little house in town. I just tallied up all the sheets in my Excel file on Roses: 348 rose varieties have come to live in my gardens over the years and almost half of those have moved on out again for various reasons like lack of hardiness in the cold, poor disease resistance, poor performance, lack of appeal, or now - lack of space. I'm still whittling down my collection and selecting those that make me most happy to transfer to the new house. And even though I still have some old favorites to be moved, I have a few new roses on order because I see the new roses being hybridized and I realize that some of these are wonderful roses. High on my list now is disease resistance followed closely by fragrance. I'm taking it slowly and enjoying the journey after realizing that it is not a "finished" garden that I crave, but the slow building of a perfect garden - perfect for me, anyway. At one time I thought I had that, but it was not perfect for me because it entailed too much upkeep. Now I know better what my limits should be and I will stay within them. Old reliable friends like Rosa glauca, Leda and Sydonie will be neighbors with new roses such as Wild Blue Yonder and Julia Child...and all will be interspersed with many perennials and annuals. No longer will any of my beds be a mono-culture.

If I had to do it all over again....first win the lotto

Then, stop looking at what hardscape things are in my way and decide if I want to move them rather than work around them. I think that has been the hardest thing I have dealt with and the garden would look very different if I went and laid things out as I wanted them. In the end, many of those hardscape items ended up being moved or are still an issue.

If I had a chance to do it all over again?? Five yrs ago I had that oppertunity when I moved from S.E. Fl. to N.E. Ga. I've lost a few roses from them not being cane hardy. I wanted my garden to serve a multi porpose. 1st Kenny appeal. 2nd road appeal. 3rd educational for all visitors. 4th exhibiting. I wanted to grow roses from ALL class's. I knew with my limited (retired) income it would take a few (?) years to complete. I'll just about finish my OGR's this spring. 3 or 4 more to add to my 9 already in place. 1, maybe 2 more Shrubs (Austins) to go with 7 in place. Then there"s the 15 more HT's to go in along with 2 more clinbers, 8 more florabunda's and 5 or 6 more mini/miniflora's. Yeah, I have a chance to do it all over again.

Interesting question and lists here. I'm not sure I'd want to start all over though. I've enjoyed the journey too much. And I do suspect that even if we all could magically have our ideal gardens they wouldn't be really ideal anyway. Gardens are like that. Just when you think you've solved one problem another one rears it's ugly head and we're at it again. There are some roses I'd never plant now because I know they either hate it here or hate me, lol! There are some roses that even though they're the pits a lot of the time I could never part with them for several different reasons. Gardens are so very personal aren't they? About the only thing I'd wish for is more space that has good sun and less tree roots!

Another one doing it over....but terrifyingly, all the experience I have accrued over the past 16 years or so (I came late to gardening), including a decade as a professional (ahem) has no relevance to what I am looking at now. Not even the basics such as seed sowing applies since the scale involved, moving from .16 acre of sunny allotment .....to 5 acres of neglected poplar woods, is so far removed from my usual MO. Mind, the whole thing is so utterly overwhelming that I am finding it quite easy to be forgiving of my erratic efforts. But anyway, despite having masses of space, I am taking only a handful of roses with me and I have only the vaguest and loosest of ideas as to how to proceed- although I have rushed directly back to my comfort zone of seed-sowing and pottering......but I know there will be major stress when thousands of seedlings need planting ....somewhere........in the untamed nettles and brambles.....next spring.
Already, the ridiculousness of this venture has meant doing things very differently. Instead of planting a dozen or so perennials, in my gorgeously friable loamy allotment soil, carefully hand weeded and tended......I have merely popped several hundred at a time, into the unamended, weedy woodland floor because, obviously, I am not grubbing around with a daisy grubber in a forest - this is going to be a war of attrition, countered only by luck and numbers. My only cogent 'plan' so far consists of the usual trying stuff out, then ramping up the numbers of any robust enough to survive competition, predators, neglect (A pitifully small number, I suspect). I have definitely noticed that plants which thrive here are often on the large side....so roses are going to have to have a similar exuberance as our native wildlings....and will probably be new to me....and I am sowing lots of perennials which have a certain statuesque quality (campanulas, chamerion(epilobium), Joe Pye Weed, angelica, foxgloves). Other than that, I am a bit clueless.

If I had this garden (which was a blank slate when we bought it) to do over again I would have gone strictly with native (to this area) woodland plants: Quercus agrifolia, Heteromeles arbutifolia, and Rhus integrifolia, with a few Salvias in sunny spots to attract hummingbirds, and a Ceanothus or two. It would be a much different garden.

Hindsight has 20/20 vision!

Oh nooooo, Hoovb! I'd miss your blogspot. You would have hardly anything to photograph and blog about. Besides, surely you would be bored with the lack of variety? Say it isn't so.

Cath

If I could do it all over again I'd quit being so gun-shy of online ordering and get on with my life. I would be years ahead of where I am now. I started with roses about 7 years ago but due to depressing availability I never got off the ground with it. Fast forward 7 years and spring of 2013 saw me returning to roses and enjoying it more than ever now that I can buy roses from more than just the nursery down the road.

Remember Olga? She has an amazing garden here in Maryland and used to post such useful advice. I miss her.

If I could do it over I would follow her advice to the letter. It was fun (while it lasted) to experiment with all sorts of roses, but as I shovel-prune bs- ridden roses I always think of her!

The only rose she ( and LoriElf) were "wrong" about is SdlM. So I'm glad I went rogue there.

I think I'm "doing it over" this time. I've enjoyed gardening for many years, but didn't get to start putting one together in a mostly blank slate until I lived in Franklin Square on Long Island. My intro to roses began with a David Austin book, and being a person interested in fragrance first, I tried putting together an order based on what the book recommended as the most strongly fragrant. This was before I learned about HelpMeFind and the OGRs. So basically, I was easily wowed by just a fraction of what I could possibly choose. Companion plants were ordered from nurseries I knew -- not many, and not the best selection, but mostly just the ones that sent me catalogs in the mail. I didn't have as much of a plan then, mostly just finding plants I'd like to grow and finding places to put them. Then I started planning individual areas at a time, and impressed myself with what I did in the front of the house in an island bed (see pics below, the bed in its second Summer).

But just as I started figuring out how to get things going, I decided to turn things around, move to Buffalo, and go back to school again. During those three years, I didn't really have a garden (besides the four big plots I planted at the end of my street using a city grant) because of limited funds and time (full-time student plus full-time employment doesn't leave much time for anything else). I satisfied the gardening itch by learning. I got a bunch of bands as "farewell gifts" when I was getting ready to leave, and watched them grow for a couple months, and that taught me a little about starting with own-root baby roses. And I got to smell my first OGRs.

I moved here to NJ in July 2012. I became familiar with the space, and got the permission from my landlord to "plant whatever I want." But I didn't start last year. I kept walking around, thinking of beds I wanted to put together, and how to do it. I read and re-read books and web pages on OGRs, looked at gardening blogs, and tried imagining full-sized specimens of the roses which caught my interest as I walked around the yard.

I made lists. I edited lists. I expanded lists. I edited them again. I decided that since Vintage Gardens would be ending its tenure, I'd look first at what they had available with every release and finding anything that was on my list. And then I looked at what wasn't on the list (because I hadn't heard of it), learned about those roses, and further edited my lists. When the last release was posted, and there were still other "must-haves" not yet ordered, I went to Rogue Valley Roses...and then Heirloom Roses...and then Long Ago Roses.

I had so many coming, but so few were actually assigned specific spots. But I ordered things that were the "parts" I'd love to incorporate into a "whole" which I would put together the right way -- starting with the bones first, and filling in around them with companion plants after. Being as the roses will take longer to mature, it made sense to get them in the ground and give them an extra year to build up before I start planting the spaces between them.

I also knew that for a garden to be great, I'd have to start with the soil. With the amount of mulch I put down, the garden is essentially composed of raised-beds, the roses planted into the native soil but growing in a nutrient-rich mix around their roots. Continual application of organics atop the very thick layer of mulch will essentially work like lasagna composting, which will create great soil by the time the rose roots (and companion plants) grow into it. So putting together a garden is more than just picking pretty plants and digging them into the ground. This is a lesson I learned but hadn't yet gotten to implement -- until now.

I'm very happy with everything I picked so far, but I can't say everything will be perfect because it's been only a few months since they were planted. I like the idea that what's in my head is actually ahead of what's waiting to go in the ground. I look back at pics I took of the yard before I did anything, and I remember the anxiety I had over moving into a place sight-unseen, with certain aspects far below that with which I had been accustomed in prior homes -- "Ack! Am I really living here?". I walk around now and I think "OK, it's getting there...this won't be making me crazy for much longer".

So I guess the short version is that I've learned to think first about the "whole" I want, and then find the "pieces" to put it together -- and research ad nauseum all the parts before I order them. No more "ooh, pretty plant, I want it!" unless it will work as a piece of my predetermined whole. I might still end up with a few lemons, but at least this way I can simply look for something else to replace that removed part.

:-)

~Christopher

{{gwi:326220}}

{{gwi:326221}}

{{gwi:326222}}

{{gwi:326223}}

The $600 water bills are killing me.

Hoovb nailed it.

If I could do it all over again, I'd move somewhere with higher average rainfall....lol

Josh

Josh -- go EAST, young man...cross the Mississippi, and you'll get all the rain you want (as well as blackspot).

:-P

~Christopher

Oh Hoovb, I'm sorry. I just don't think in those terms. We have our own well for outside water. We used to have it for inside too but that's a long story. We have plenty of other growing problems though.

Cath

I miss Olga's postings also. I follow her pruning advice on my once bloomers and have clipped a number of her postings. The problem with following someone's advice is it takes awhile to figure out if they are worth following and we have to find things out for ourselves, anyway. But her voice always seemed authentic and true to me too. As I said, I miss her posting also and wish her the best. Her pictures of her roses were really beautiful. I class Lori right up there too.

This post was edited by harborrose on Mon, Nov 18, 13 at 3:21

titian, I love your rose circle. If I'm ever in Sydney I want to come see your garden!

What did happen to Olga? I agree, she was a valuable contributor to the forum, and wrote some things I've remembered ever since.
If I could go back and do things differently, I would plant a great many acorns in strategic places and anchor the vulnerable borders of the garden with ground-holding, slide- and slump-preventing trees and shrubs, especially hazelnuts. Then I would plant inner borders of roses. And I would dig HUGE holes for every shrub, including the roses of course, and tree, hiring a digger, and amending the dug out ground heavily with old hay. I would also plan with an eye to drainage. I had never worried about it, as most of the garden is on a steep slope, but last winter was very wet and in a new, almost flat, area of the garden we actually had plants drown, and I found out it was possible.
Most of my roses I like fine.
Good question, Ingrid.
Melissa

Hoovb, I am approaching that limit as well. Mulch has helped but it only goes so far. I cut back a little now in the summer and just let hips form and forgo the flowers until the heat passes. The summer flowers aren't as high quality anyway. Still, I feel I have gotten my money's worth.
I am hoping for a wet winter/early spring for us. Your garden is one of the most beautiful and poetic in all California that is lovingly watched over by one gardener. That's a triumph and I'm glad you did it. No matter what the future holds, we'll always remember the beautiful Eden you created.

Your comments have all been very interesting and individual, with my anger again directed at hoovb's robber barons of a water company who may yet succeed in doing away with what has to be one of the most beautiful private rose gardens I've ever seen.

I was hoping, though, that I would have more comments about roses you absolutely would plant again if given the chance to redo your garden from scratch. I always find it interesting to know what roses you would never part with and which would always find a place in any garden you were to begin again.

Ingrid

Ingrid,

Ah yes, I digress. Apologies for getting off topic.

I would go straight for the antiques instead of fiddling around with needy varieties.

Duchesse de Brabant
Cramoisi Supeurier
Crepuscule
Alister Stella Gray
SDLM
Souv d'Elise Vardon
Souv. De Francois Gaulain
Archduc Charles (China)
Mme Laurette Messimy
Reines des Violettes

Ya know, the GOOD stuff. Maybe throw in some Hybrid Chinas and Polyanthas along the way.

Josh

View1ny you'd be very welcome! I'd love to see hoovb's garden.

Ingrid, yes we did stray from your intention.

My list in no particular order

Mrs Wakefield Christie-Miller
SDLM
Francis Dubreuil
Duchesse de Brabant
Anna Olivier
Titian
Lorraine Lee
Westerland
Frau Dagmar Hastrup
Marie van Houtte
Mutabilis
Mme Isaac Pereire
Angel's Camp Tea

The climbers that grace most of the back wall in my yard are moderns, but in my do over they would be antiques; likely Tea roses, with the exception of Don Juan, which I would have to work in some sort of way. I love Mrs. B.R. Cant, Maman Cochet, Sombreuil,Mme. Alfred Carriere. I am optimistic about my Belle Vichysoisse as it is reported to be heat tolerant in an area warmer than it is here during the summer.

The back yard that receives morning sun would be devoted to the Austin's that I am having good luck with like Bishop's Castle, Golden Celebration, my very happy Charles Renni Mackintosh, and I would plant Munstead Wood too. My backyard roses lack that intoxicating perfume that would be the focus of my plantings.

Lynn

I would plant more Polys from the start. I'm trying to fix it now and add them in. I moved Perle 'd Or to a better location where it can strut it's stuff on the corner and get really big next to an Abraham Darby. They are going to make magic together, I think.

I haven't heard from Olga in a while either... I miss her!

I *am* doing parts of my garden all over right now, so this post is very relevant to me. A combination of things -- wrist tendonitis, new significant other, removal of old trellising and arbors that were starting to rot or break down, etc -- have spurred me to downsize and redesign my garden to something more maintainable and manageable.

I've been here 25 years and most of my roses are more than 15 years old. I made lists of my favorite must-have roses and if they were in the wrong place got some help transplanting them into beds that are staying, and got rid of other roses. I am liking having more room between beds (and my significant other finds it easier to mow now) more than I expected.
I've found that getting rid of many large climbers and ramblers with the trellising has helped a lot with maintenance, and I don't have as much work to do on ladders as I used to (and no more ladders on hills; I fell over once and that was enough). I'm using other trees and shrubs as focal points instead of climbers in some cases like a beautiful Japanese maple tree and a Camelia.

Anyway, some of my favorites I wouldn't want to be without:
Felicite Parmentier, Great Maiden's Blush, Mme Ernest Calvat, Blanchfleur, Cristata, Shailer's Provence, Rhode Island Red, Leda, Munstead Woods, Sweet Juliet, Sharifa Asma, Charles de Mills, Tuscany, Duchesse de Montebello, Mme Victor Verdier, Salet, Marchessa Boccella, Rose de Resht, Climbing American beauty, Golden Wings.

Yes, Olga had a totally awesome garden. Put mine to shame. Her Japanese Beetle photos were however the stuff of nightmares.

Roses, right: 'Belinda's Dream', 'Barcelona', 'Ambridge Rose', 'Firefighter', 'Easy Does It', 'Julia Child', 'Molineux', 'Secret', 'Fourth Of July', 'Iceberg', 'Bolero', 'Mrs B. R. Cant'. I think I could manage with those few (if I had multiples of each).

I could survive on 'Belinda's Dream' and 'Firefighter' alone if I really had to.

And Golden Dawn, which I just planted this spring. Things I read after I'd ordered it made me wish I hadn't, but it far surpasses what I'd originally hoped for. The blooms are generous in number and size, the colour a lovely soft but definite yellow, and fragrant. She's said to sprawl, and I have her so she can sprawl over a retaining wall, and mix in with Angel's Camp Tea below.
As for other plants, the camellias Magnoliafloriae, Tinsy and Yuletide, Malus 'Ioensis Plena', a very pale pink magnolia (no room here), Japanese Cherries 'Mount Fuji', and a pale pink one (again, no room here).
Salvias muelleri, Mystic Spires and a pale blue one that is I think called 'African Skies'.
Penstemons 'sour grapes' and 'midnight'.
Poppies, lots of silky singles, particularly Iceland poppies, which I used to have at the back steps in a previous house, and I'd sit and watch them unfold over a morning coffee.
Nepeta spilling over paths, yellow verbascum, windflowers, nigella and lupins, lupins, lupins if only they would grow in this climate. And now I really MUST do some work!

titian1, your companion plants sound wonderful, and I hope you'll post more pictures of your garden at some time. I can tell that your property has incredible potential. I had to look up Golden Dawn on HMF and it's a lovely rose. I really like the paler yellows that blend in so well with other colors.

I too remember Olga's wonderful garden and the horrible Japanese beetles. I especially remember her incredible Lady Hillingdon, so far removed from my puny assemblage of sticks with a few, easily fried flowers waving in a dispirited way above.

Ingrid

I'm just one of those satisfied people. I can say I did it my way. I love my garden. I have most of my dream roses, though that list always seems to grow. We don't have enough money to develop more water sources like I wish we could. I do wish that I had made the pathways wider, though that would have involved more trucking of gravel up and down hill.

Ingrid, thankyou for your post, for it reminded me of some plants that I've had, and haven't (yet) found room for, Mrs Wakefield C-M being one. But I've now decided to remove a Moss rose (Alfred de Dalmas), which doesn't give me as much pleasure as I expected, and plant her there.
My rose list would be a lot longer if I had grown, or even seen, many of the roses others mention loving. I think Charles de Mills would be there for sure.
And, as yet!, I have no poppies in this garden.
I agree, my property has potential. My neighbour tells me that it was someone from Sydney's Botanic Gardens who laid it out, many decades ago. When I got here, it was just knee-high weeds, giant, rather ugly, hibiscus and oleanders, and lots of tropical plants gone mad. I told my neighbour I wanted to put in a fishpond, and she said "You've already got one.". That's how overgrown things were! There were a whole mass of scrappy gingers?, an iron bath with a giant strelitzia in it, a rat's nest, and no water to be seen.
Here it is now.

Beautiful! Who knows what other welcome discoveries you'll make in the future? I'm just amazed you didn't care for the giant strelitzia in the iron bath!

My brother has a pond which had koi in it. The blue egrets ate them all.

Ingrid

I feel like the roses I'm buying now are just experiments to discover the roses I'd like to grow when I decide to "do it all over again!"

I don't think I want to collect a 100 different roses, but I can see myself growing 100 roses that are one of the ten varieties or so that I discover are spectacular in my microclimate.

As I select new roses to try I'm paying more and more attention to "Jean's List." A once and former member of this forum from my city who as left a few clues for me to dig up across the internet.

subk3, what you're doing is more or less what I did, although I didn't realize it for quite some time. I've discarded well over 100 roses over the years in trying to find out what would work here. As you can see from my list above, I found more than 20 roses that work really well here, and that's not even counting those that I can't yet evaluate because they're too young. I envy people who can grow lots of roses really well, but I don't have their conditions, green thumb or energy. All we can do is the best we can with what we've been given.

Ingrid

This is something I have thought about a lot, and continue to mull over in my mind. So of course I started writing a long post full of my thoughts. Then I dumped it. Just too many variables.

I can say that I would be sure to include lots of climbers, climbing roses being my favorites. If I were to make a list today, I would include these:

Cl Shot Silk
Cl Crimson Glory
Bardou Job
Leander
Rambling Rector
Crepuscule
Cl Lady Hillingdon

The other thing I would do, and something I have started doing here already, is to embrace growing multiples of favorite roses that do well.

Finally I would be sure to have lots of plants that were not roses at all: a small open woodland area, even if just a tiny patch; an orchard of half a dozen trees, a structured herb bed, a tomato patch in summer. And I have come to believe that gardens benefit greatly from well chosen structural plants rather than being all about the roses. But yes, I do want roses, too.

Rosefolly

Ingrid, we lack blue egrets, but have kookaburras here that eat the fish. I started off with koi in another pond, that I had to net, as the kookaburras were feasting. Then the koi ate the waterlilies, down to the last leaf, and I decided I'd rather have the lilies, so I now have goldfish.
Rosefolly, I do agree with you about structure. I saw a garden last week (Red Cow Farm) that had a 'room' called The Abbess's Garden, which had lots of beds surrounded by box hedges and pyramids (also box), and it was stunning.

rosefolly, I very much agree with growing multiples of good roses and have quite a few. In fact, I really like all of your ideas. Since rose bushes are rather formless, structural plants to me are also an absolute necessity. I can't imagine a garden not having contrasting shapes and sizes of plants, something that will stop your eye in various places rather than just gazing over a sea of roses.

titian1, interestingly enough my brother's pond also now has goldfish and water lilies!

Ingrid

Roses I would grow are, mistakes or not, Mme. Plantier, Souvenir de la Malmaison, Quietness, Sombreuil, Blanc Double de Coubert, Clotilde Soupert and Pope John Paul II. I have been amazed at the number of blooms it has produced in this its first year. Plants usually take a very long time to establish here.

Other plants that I must have include; Anemone japonica 'Honrine Jobert' and 'Whirlwind' (whites), 'Prinz Heinrich' (rose) as well a few pinks, Brunnera 'Jack Frost' (the jury is still out for 'Looking Glass' although I can already tell that it is not as strong a grower), box, yew, holly, Vinca minor, Daphne odora marginata, Nandina domestica 'Ivory Queen' (pale yellow berries), Narcissus in quantity (it is one of those things one can never have too much of), Lycoris squamigera, Scilla siberica (love that cobalt blue), Eranthis hiemalis, Crocus (both Fall and Spring blooming), Cyclamen, Colchicum, Lilium, Paeonia, Helleborus niger and its hybrids. I am sure that I have forgotten something but this is a good starter list.

I have done fairly well with hedges and trees for structure but I would focus more on shrub compositions, especially evergreens, both broadleaved and needled, although those compositions must include deciduous plants or the effect becomes too ponderous. A lot is written about plant composition but it is usually directed at the relationship of perennials with each other. More emphasis should be placed on shrubs. They form a satisfying year round structure for the garden. Perennials are the bling. Shrubs can be interesting with flowers and berries as well as foliage and are definitely less labor intensive.

Cath

I went to a costume sewing party this weekend in South OC. It was held at a house purchased by a lady who lives 6 or 8 houses down the street. She bought it for her daughter and completely reworked the inside. Her daughter can't move in yet , so she's going to rent it out for a few years.

She had the ability to start all over again in the garden. The only plants that stayed were the front grass, a tangerine, a lemon and an orange tree. The rest was just good soil waiting to be replanted. The whole back area looks out over a river channel with a bike path and native hills beyond. For 6 months she's been planting and weeding and it looks fantastic. She was there working on the inside so she's been observing the patterns of sun and shade and she's been living down the street for 15 years so she knows what plants will grow well. All she had to do was make a nice design and go pick out plants. Making a new garden without having to fix up the soil.......not how I had to do it. It will be interesting to see how it all looks in a year. The neighbor friend promised to let her peek over the wall and watch her design in action.