Hello, Susan. I have not seen a post from you for ages, and now, Happy New year!!!

When you are about to drop from moving and sit down to your computer to rest, would you fill in the gaps?

Sammy

I remember some of your posts from about 5 years ago when you were planning the tea rose bed. Your garden was so gorgeous and I always looked forward to your photo posts.
It was clear your garden was a labor of love. I hope you took your garden art, benches etc.
Congrats on the new house.
It would be great to see the evolution of the new garden.
Janelle

Hi Susan,---Many of your old friends (including me) have been wondering about you.

I'm happy to see you posting--

Hope your new home is as lovely as the old one---I just loved your rose garden----

Are you still in the same area ??

Like Sammy asked -----I hope you can fill in the blank pages.

Lots of luck in your new home.

Florence

It must have been terribly difficult to leave that gorgeous garden of yours, but now you have a blank slate, on which to create something even more beautiful. Good luck with your new project! We will all be looking forward to seeing the photos once you get planting.
Judith

Hi Susan! Can't wait to see photos of the new house. I spent some very pleasurable hours on your kitchen website browsing through the Danish kitchens. How lovely. Wish you could work in Seattle! Best wishes on the new house and happy new year to you and yours!

Sue

Now you have a blank slate to work with. Enjoy!

Oh. I don't think I'll tell Larry, just yet. He thought your garden was just about perfect.

OK, about Sunlight. Can you borrow the Rodale "Passive Solar Energy Book" by Ezria from a library? It has the charts the you can copy (as well as descriptions of how to use them) and you can sit on your south facing slope, sketch in the trees and houses and figure out how many hours of sunlight that slope will get and when each amount of sunlight will hit.

If I can help with that, email me.

Thanks for the kind words!! It all happened so fast, six weeks from the offer to the move, and packing 20 years of stuff was an absolute killer! Moving is stressful, I didn't realize how stressful it is. But, it was a good reason to move, so the feeling is a good one. We just moved two towns away, but this town has so much more to offer, more things to do, and so on.

I don't feel like I've been gone, because I've been lurking a lot. I've just had a bunch of things work and house related going on at once for quite some time.

I'll never have a garden like the one we had, but, boy, did we create a dream garden, so there's a lot of satisfaction with that.

Definitely, a blank slate is a good thing. Thanks very much Ann, I'd like to find time to do that, at least I know there's a method to work from.

Meanwhile, the roses are in bags with lots of soil in them. Should we leave them outside and water occasionally? Or, bring them in the garage? What do you think?

Re the roses.
A local exhibitor had her soil changed out (kind of wasteful, IMO). The guy doing the job moved the roses into her garage and covered them with a tarp. He wasn't that careful about keeping the soil on or even keeping feeder roots on. They were on a cold cement floor in the dark for over a month. They lived. (She almost lost it, several times).
You chose a good time of year for this to happen. Do make sure that the sun doesn't shine on them.

(If you can't find the book, email me and I'll send you pertinent pages.)

Well good luck think of the great rose Hill behind the Cranford Rose Garden a couple of hundred roses on it. For now I assume your soil will be frozen as mine is so I'd try to save them in large garbage pails filled with soil to keep the roots alive.

Susan, how exciting for you. Now you can start new but I can't imagine leaving the old garden. Nice to hear from you.

Carla

I'm surprised no one else has asked---which seven roses did you move?

Colleen

Well, out of about 150+ roses, I find it a little strange which ones we removed. We had limited time, very limited time.

Frances Dubreuil - this was an interesting pick because it is so not vigorous, but maybe because it's been somewhat in the shade. It's quite spindly, for lack of a better word. But, the form and the fragrance is fantastic. We have two and removed both. Now, did we remove them because they were closest to the shed where we got our equipment from? Or, did I choose those first because I didn't want to forget them? I think the latter. Would I have taken them if they were in a far part of the garden? I have no idea.

Bolero - Yes, I can get it probably again, but sometimes roses just disappear from commerce and I LOVE Bolero, so I had to take it.

Cape Cod - This is a Poulsen rose, and it doesn't seem to go by this name anymore, and we spent 15 years vacationing on Cape Cod with the kids, and we found this ON Cape Cod, so we could not leave that behind.

Mystery White - this is a smallish antique rose, a charming, good blooming, white rose, a favorite of my husband.

Evelyn - horrible rebloomer, ridiculously beautiful blooms. Same case as Bolero. I can get it again, but....

I think that may have been it, so I think we took less than I thought.

All my Austins, I can get again so I let them go, and my other Teas, I can get again also.

I told the people at the closing to let me know if or when they are going to remove part or all of the garden, and I'd take more roses. My attorney at the closing said the same thing!

I moved this year and can understand your stress because besides the inside stuff I also wanted to take as many plants as possible (yes some roses too).
This was complicated by not wanting our neighbors to know before moving day because they were the cause of our moving.

I dug up the plants for weeks/months, put them in plastic nursery pots and put the pots back in the hole and kept watering. The hardest were 20 foot bamboos I could not bear to leave, the roses were easy.

You should have seen their faces on moving day when the trucks pulled up with an extra one to handle all the plants. We have a smaller yard now but GREAT neighbors 100 miles away and everything lived.

Good luck with your new garden. The roses you kept were for a reason, your unconscious guided you.

Good luck with your new adventure. Wish you plenty of energy :) This is always a challenge.
Olga

Susan, I lived in Livingston N.J. for 12 years and container grew many roses.
I would drag them into the old drafty garage for the winter. When it snowed I would open the doors and shovel snow into the tc pots. I never let them completely dry out. The floor was cement and the garage was not insulated. There was an east window and south windows in the top part of the doors. Just an old wooden garage. The pots never broke, the plants never froze. They would pretty much act like my garden roses. They were all planted with fafard potting soil. On the other hand you could just dig a hole, plant them all temporarily. Let us know. Good to read your name again. Oh, I would drag them out in mid March.

iamagardener2, wow, you were organized to remove them weeks and months ahead of time. I'm afraid I would have not known how to keep them alive, so I waited till the latest I could.

Olga, oh yes, we'll have the energy. We must!

darbardi, thank you! Excellent and hopeful advice that I will follow. With that experience, you are a pro at this, thanks so much.

Susan, having done what you're doing way too many times, my advice is to enjoy the opportunity to try new roses you haven't before, and remember what you've learned so far to avoid any past mistakes. Each garden gets to be better than the one before! Congrats on the new place, and count me as one who looks forward to your photos.

--Ron

Susan, the photos of your garden were the ones I always looked forward to seeing. Your garden was a paradise. I sure hope you will post photos of your new garden!

I had the opposite problem years ago - I moved roses in July of our hot Texas summer. I watered daily [and I mean DAILY]. I did not lose a one! When I moved to another new farm, I potted them up and kept them in the shade and well watered. I still have some left from that move 15 years ago.

I was interested to see you have Cape Cod - I have one too, a small one that I am going to move this week to more sun. The photos look beautiful. And think you have enabled me into Bolero.....

Good luck with your new garden. Hopefully, you will be able to move more roses if the new owners dont want them. Dont know how I could have chosen which to pick.....I would have had to hire help and dug them all up! Good luck to you, and hope to see photos of the new garden and how you make it.
Judith

Congratulations on your new home. I'm sure you will love it.

There is a poster, I think, named Rhonda (in S. Carolina?) who has a huge hill in her backyard. She posted pics this year (I think) of how it has been coming along. Oh, yes, I found a few. I know she uses modern roses, but I thought you might like to see what she's done.

Lisa

Here is a link that might be useful: Rhonda

Ron, I actually didn't think of that...trying roses that I have not had before. I think I'll do that!

Judith, thank you for your comments. There is no question that you need Bolero. It has a lot of great qualities. Did you order it yet? ;)

Lisa, thanks so much for that link! That's so great to see those images. Much appreciated.

I'm going to start another thread with images of the hill. I have a new idea I'm REALLY excited about that I'll share in that thread. Let me know what you think about that when you see it!

Well, better late to the party than never. I found the thread about Susan moving. That's what happens when you stay away from the forums for the winter like I did, you miss out on all the news.

Susan, I can never get the picture of your rose garden out of my mind. I do not think I could have ever left it if it was mine. Good luck in your new house. I am sure creating a new garden will be a great joy.

Congratulations on a successful transition. It can be liberating to shed bits and pieces of the past that we no longer need. Voluntary moving can mean that we choose what we want to keep, not just keep everything from inertia.

I look forward to seeing pictures of a truly wonderful new garden!

Rosefolly

Susan I'll never forget how beautiful your garden looked after you rescued me from La Guardia. I too think you might try some new roses. Pamela has an entire hillside planted with two hundred ramblers and we are all breathless to see how it will look in the Spring. San Jose had the most beautiful climbing roses in the trees Or as they say every tragedy is a window of opportunity or actually I think they said a leap into the infinite but same difference.
love,
la

NYRita, hi there...well, yes, it was hard. Just got an email yesterday from the new owners who are delighting in seeing new things pop up from the ground. I had told them if something looks like a weed it probably isn't. I think I'm closer to where you live now!

Rosefolly, we just took a walk around our new hill, thinking of what to do, about an hour or so ago. First thing, lots of leaves have to go, then we'll see what we have. Thanks. We're looking forward, I think. Looking forward to a new landscape.

Luanne, thanks for those words! I do think a hill can look magnificent. I think I'd go so far as to say that I'm lucky in that respect! Yeah, I can say that. The question is to get the right ones which are blackspot resistant and can take some shade. Jim gave me a few good suggestions. I'm forming a vision little by little, I think. Thanks again. :)

Susan,

I recall with fondness the transformation of your old yard to a beautiful garden. Please guide us through your creative processes. No pressure, just let it happen and please keep us updated.

What bones do you have to work with this time?

Doug

What bones...oy! I'm on a 1/2 acre, yet we have a teeny tiny usable backyard which then goes into this beautiful hill (our property) with a flat area above the hill (ours too). We have many trees surrounding the property (but not ON the relatively short hill) an L shaped house which may block the sun since we have this teeny backyard, and more trees and a huge house next door. I need to see the yard when the leaves on the trees are out. Thurs, the "oy!"

I do almost all my gardening on hillsides, and while I don't feel like I've gotten to the point where I could offer you advice, I can tell you that hills can definitely be gardened on, and are very interesting, if not always easy! Have fun making your new garden!

Melissa