Nami, I'm new to this too. I can offer some suggestions though...First, don't plant the roses more than a couple "rows" deep..you'll want to get up close to them, and you won't want to have to walk inside your beds...therefore, have paths with roses on each side. Second, create garden "rooms"...each room can have a slightly different theme...Stephanie in VA has an excellent example of a garden room...you enter it through an arch into a 50 ft diameter circle of grass, then, the roses are planted in a bed that surrounds the circle...the bed is about 10 ft wide as an outer circle. I hope this helps. Robert

Thanks all for your comments. I don't know what kind of brain trance I was in, Sherry. I always cut down the photo size, but didn't do it. Here is a shot from further away from the rose garden (It was half planted here) There are irises inside the first division bricks on the right, and daylilies inside the larger bricks next to it. There is a large iris bed, behind the knock out roses on the left. There are two more pretty large iris beds and Four large beds of daylilies. These beds are on the other side of the greenhouse. In the first picture, that is a butterfly garden across from the rose garden. I know, I know, but I work so I can garden. I suppose I need a 12 step program, but I don;t want to stop! kay

Very few remontant irises would work in cold zones. Even in zone 8 they are hit and miss: I cut them in bud stage and brought them inside when we got the first frost. Hardy Geraniums, late blooming bulbs, Japanese anemone, Abyssinian gladiolus (very fragrant!) -both requires plenty of water and I assume in your zone you have that in the fall; Muscari (dark, sky blue and white), veronica (my favorite is the icicle), there are a gazillion of salvia, among those one id a groundcover that evergreen and start blooming in winter and keep blooming till mid May here in zone 8 (check out the hardiness in your zone!). Astilbe, Bleeding heart, Campanula of various sorts, gas plant, and primrose family. Hellebores (if you have a not very wet spot)- it flowers in winter till mid May. Delphiniums, delphiniums and delphiniums - the perfect match for roses and outstanding in your climate. As far as I know they bloom a second time in fall there. Lupines!!! I wish I could have such wonderful lupines here! Larkspur, Poppies of all kinds, sweet peas, nasturtiums. And, of course, clematis in every color and style. The list is infinite in WA State but in zone 4 you have to check the hardiness. I am sure I left out a lot of plants. My feeling was when I visited WA, that there everything was possible to grow there. However, I visited the zone 8 coastal sections.

It's a different mind set to be in, I'm still acquiring new plants too with reportedly unusual characteristics (eg Devonenis and its slight darkening yellow in UV) which makes the task of deciding what to remove a little more tricky (simply due to numbers)...but it's exciting to have made progress and to have plants you know will be used to make a next generation. The other tricky mental barrier is many of the plants I feel like I can remove are ones that are praised breeders online but I just get runts or very average plants from (ie Carefree Beauty seedlings just dont want to live regardless of other parent, Rise N Shine never anything exciting just a lot of pale pale yellows, Gemini poor root systems leading to death as soon as hot temperatures come in Gemini itself often dies back to the crown in extreme temps, etc)....just leaves you thinking youre doing something wrong when others routinely praise them