Would also help to know how long & wide the bed, what style, color & height the fence (picket, solid?) and what sun exposure plays across the bed. Will the roses be lined up or is the bed deep enough to stagger them? Are you thinking of only roses there, or of adding other companions? With companions or underplanting in mind, you have additional options for playing with the roses' colorways. To sort this out while waiting for a thunderstorm to pass, looked these up. You've some unusual & beautiful roses! Used to cannibalize catalogs for cut-outs of blooms to visualize how roses might be arranged in a bed, or do the same now with printout photos. Easiest, of course, to have them on hand in bloom to experiment in person, but most are chameleons anyways & will surprise as seasons unfold. Two lemon butter blends - GB & HB - seem equal tones Three peachy blends: Peach apricot cream blend - PP Lemon peach apricot cream blend - HB - seems to begin more saturated in color than PP Coppery orange peach with yellow blend - WA - if I got the right one - the most saturated hues of the peachy blends Two mauve purple blends - LP & BI One two-tone mauve burgundy purple - BI One pink to mauve & white or cream blend - BPI One salmon pink - Denmark Rose - for which I drew a blank - if WA is Woburn Abbey, that has shades of salmon Data on the rose list (best guesses on my part from several sources each): Gold Bunny 2-3X2' Lemon to butter yellow blend 4" blooms semi-glossy dark green foliage Honey Bouquet 3.5-4x3' Lemon with apricot yellow blend 4.75" blooms semi-glossy dark green foliage Peach Profusion 3.5x3.5' Peach wth apricot blend ?" blooms glossy dark green foliage Wottson Abbey - couldn't find this - could it be Woburn Abbey? 3.5x3.5' (some say more 3x2') Coppery orange peach with yellow blend 2.25" blooms semi-glossy dark green foliage Denmark rose - came up cold on this one (Paparoa?) salmon pink Love Potion 3-4x3' Mauve purple rose two-tone blend 3.5" blooms glosssy dark green foliage Brilliant Pink Iceberg 3-5x3-5' White to cream with light to bright pink or mauve blend 3.5" blooms semi-glossy foliage Burgundy Iceberg (sport of above) Deep to burgundy mauve purple two-tone blend Edited to add: Whoops, unintentionally left out your Knock Out. Unsure how this color could be integrated unless used as a centerpiece or combined with a twin as bookends to the bed. Understand they can become quite large at 5x5'. This post was edited by vasue on Wed, May 21, 14 at 17:00

Sorry, ducati996 for delay in responding : Parts of the lawns are not perfectly smooth and have rocks scattered thru out...part of the CT landscape look. Others are very smooth and manicured looking. Some are sloped and a bit hilly. It's definitely lawn, not a pasture with an irrigation system thru out. I have a John Deere 955 (diesel) with a 70a Bucket loader... I also have a 413 Rotary Cutter for it. I was told this was mainly a brush cutter for mowing down a field or pasture and in the 7 years I've been here, it's never been used. I don't think the John Deere would be good due to it's size and manueverablity...bronze sculptures, trees, rocks, slopes, and slightly rolling lawns. The Gravely 50" Promaster has been a great machine but I wanted to investigate other options. I know I'm looking at a $10-15k investment so I want to make sure I make the right choice. When I talk to the tractor salesmen, they of course want to sell me their machine whether it's the best or not :P Thanks so much for all your input :)

Knowing where you are located would help folks be best able to give you the most specific advice. If you click into the soil/mulch forum, do some reading, you should find a lot of useful info. "When I cut the tree stumps to the ground do I have to remove them before I can deck on top? Will they grow back? Is there a organic/natural way to kill the root?" This depends on what it is. ID'ing any plants in question on the name-that-plant forum would be a good start to answering these questions. After I have cut all the grass and other plants do I also have to treat this area before decking it, to stop unwanted growth underneath or is the lack of sunlight sufficient?" This will eliminate grass, and *likely* anything growing in full sun, but some tough characters could just creep along under there until finding a way out into the sun again. If there are any plants besides grass in question, finding their ID would be the first step to answering this question. "In your opinion which is the best wood for building raised beds?" Treated lumber and organic gardening don't mesh, which I mention because you asked about an organic way to kill stumps. Untreated lumber can rot very quickly. Not sure of your degree of organic concern? Any options besides wood? "I want my raised beds to be around hip height but this will be a huge amount of soil to fill them up, can I fill the bottom of them with rocks or gravel and should there be a layer of something between the raised bed and the ground underneath?" Knowing where you are/your climate would be necessary to answer this question accurately for your particular situation/location. And what you intend to grow. "As I will have a mammoth amount of plant waste from clearing the garden(the weeds now come up to my shoulder) I would like to put it to good use, can I compost it and then use it for the raised beds or will I then get weeds in the beds?" If there are seeds, they may sprout. Some roots/stems are able to keep growing until 'all the way dead.' You may need to stir things up a bit if you see stuff in an open pile trying to keep growing. "Do I need to put anything in with it or will it just be fine if I leave it alone in a big pile?" It will decompose no matter what you do, more quickly in a pile. I would probably generally use this material as the base layer for the raised beds, without composting it first, though know it will shrink as it decomposes. That's fine if you are making more compost as mentioned, you'll top-off the beds with it periodically, which is a good thing.

Shelly, the seed offers are on the Exchanges & Trades threads. Click on that, there is a list with seed trades and plant trades. Look at Bakemom's Newbie Seed thread and watch for SASE offers there.