My trip to England a couple of years ago definitively changed the way I am gardening here in California. I was so impressed seeing the world famous public gardens like Kew Gardens, Sissinghurst, Great Dixter etc. But to be honest what blew me away and influenced me the most were the many private gardens that my husband and I visited. They ranged from estate size gardens of many acres with a staff of gardeners to very small plots maintained by the owner himself/herself alone. Having an "Open Garden" is a well established tradition in England and that way even as a stranger you get to visit many beautiful private gardens, which I recommend highly to anyone to make use of, who is visiting England and is interested in gardening. But back to the original question. Visiting the private gardens and realizing what these gardeners got accomplished with love and of course a lot of hard work made me so much more motivated to try to create a place of similar beauty myself. The love for roses seems to be undeniably spread all over Great Britain. The variety of Old Garden Roses that they grow there, interspersed with modern varieties too, opened my eyes to the vast range of roses. The private gardens that I saw were mostly planted in a cottage style design, which means very dense and lush plantings. I was equally impressed by the variety of perennials that they plant over there. I never saw any boring monotony of mass plantings or the repetitive use of only one or two varieties that simply grew well in that area. The ability of the British to combine colors is also outstanding. They pay so much attention to that and have such a good feeling for colors that go well together. So when I came home to California I wanted to recreate the feeling of the gardens that I had seen in England with roses and plants that grow well here in CA. I started to buy more roses, in fact many more roses, old and new varieties. I try to plant more densely for a lush, full effect and give much more thought to color combination. I designed a pure white garden bed (the inspiration came from the White Garden in Sissinghurst), which I am still tweaking but I am very pleased with how it has turned out so far. I also pay much more attention to plant a "proper border", which means the biggest plants go in the back, medium size plants into the middle and smaller ones are planted in the front of the border. I also use more containers in the garden, which provide an element of formality, but also color in case I use a glazed pot (right now I am in love with blue containers). I felt that the love for gardening knows no boundaries in England and it made me speechless how far even private gardener developed the "Art of Gardening" and what beauty they were able to create. Now that I am writing about this I realize that besides lots of inspiration from seeing so many gorgeous gardens, the most precious thing I took home with me from Great Britain is the motivation to really try to create a beautiful small garden myself. Thank you England! Christina Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Garden Dreams

Annie = I know you are giving up on the idea but I want to clarify a couple of things. the fountain kit I was suggesting remains hidden. My husband & I used one to create a fountain out of a redesigned, hypertufa leaf platter (think water dripping down the edges to the leaves - into a terracotta bowl. - it runs on electricity, but it at least conserves water. It's not that fake looking fountain at all. An example can be seen by following the link below: the antiquity fountain you describe - like the ones in ROME were powered by the aquaduct system. No electricitiy for certain but it required a huge engineering undertaking to channel water down from mountain springs into a reservoir which is normally in a valley setting and by the force of the water rushing it, it was able to push water outward and upwards through a narrow channel into the various water pipes the Romans have built. The steeper the incline of the downward flow, the more powerful the water going up into the aquaducts. A better picture is to use a a small container as an example. The container has only 2 openings. One for an intake hose and the other, an outtake hose. Fill that container with water, now push water in via the intake hose. See how the water will spurt out the other hose. This was how the Romans managed to channel water from the mountains over rough hills into the cities below. This means, the water flow was continues and never stopped flowing. I was thinking about how wasteful this was but that was the way it is for the ancients. This was the water for their drinking, their saunas, and also their communal potty (and this is truly interesting. there was no such thing as privacy when sitting on those chamber pots.) OH -- they lined their canals, pipes with lead. So in the long term, they managed to poison themselves. RE: "Thanks for your input, too. Good ideas, but I don't want one of those faux fountains kits made of resin. I'm a "naturalist, hippie-type girl:". I would rather do without one than have resin or fiberglass or...gag....plastic. No offense to those of you who like them just fine, but that's not me. The other problem is running electricity out there. That would be a MAJOR undertaking for me. I ain't a young chickadee anymore. So...how did they do it BEFORE there was electricity? The old ones didn't use electricity. I know there is a way.! Obviously, the people in antiquity built fountains that pumped the water around and around. What was their system? Even if I don't do it, I just want to know.. Don't you? " Here is a link that might be useful: fountain kit

LL - I'm sure you've already researched yellow jackets, but I did some checking for my own interest. The link below is to one good source that I think is probably local to your area (?) It doesn't emphasize as much as some of the others the need to have a professional do the spraying if you choose to spray. After reading some of the articles, I certainly wouldn't want to tackle spraying a nest myself! It was interesting to read that the colonies die out each winter and the nest disintegrates. New nests are formed each year (I didn't find an explanation of where the new queen comes from though! Migrates maybe...?) It was interesting to read about control possibilites by trapping the queens in spring to reduce or eliminate populations later in the summer. That might be worth doing. Since we don't have much sun in the backyard, all our veggies are grown either in the flower beds in the front garden or in pots on the driveway. We don't have a large veggie garden but enough to be fun and useful. Garlic is quite ornamental in the garden when it produces the curly scapes (which are tasty as a stir-fried side-dish!) DH tucks in garlic all over the place wherever he finds a bit of bare ground in the fall. Chives are very ornamental when they flower so they fit nicely in my 'pretty in pink' driveway border. Lettuce we grow in pots because it's unattractive once it bolts. It's easier to cut it down in the pots. We don't grow cooking onions but the little green onions grow very nicely in pots. So do baby carrots. I've grown leeks in pots too - it's easy to start them in just a bit of soil at the bottom and then keep adding soil to the pot as they grow - much easier to do all that in the pot than it is to keep hilling them up in a trench in the ground in the garden! Peas do beautifully in big pots. I plant at least 5 different varieties each spring in April. I choose the varieties based on days-to-maturity, selecting ones that range form 50-70+ days to maturity so I get a long season of production. 6' bamboo poles in a teepee arrangement makes good support for the peas. I use 8' bamboo poles for the pole beans, which also do great in pots, but would be ornamental in the garden as well. Since the peas finish earlier than beans and look ugly and need to have the foliage ripped out by late June-early July, beans would be the choice to grow in the ground as a productive ornamental, leaving the peas to be grown in pots. The pots I use are the big gray plastic storage pots with holes drilled in the bottom for drainage - they're cheap, can hold a lot of soil, and look not-too-bad :-) Deep window-box type pots make good containers for things like baby carrots, green onions and leeks. I've never had any luck getting tomatoes to do well in pots. I always put those in the herb bed on the side of the driveway. I move the location for the tomatoes around to prevent disease build-up from year to year. I've tried growing cucumbers and watermelons in pots but they weren't happy for me. Zuchinni did well (I think it would do well anywhere!) Green peppers did so-so. The big disadvantage of pots is watering the cursed things! I keep resolving to have fewer pots but it never happens... Now that DH is retired, he has taken over the 'veggie garden' and doesn't seem to mind the watering - he keeps adding more pots... Putting the veggies with the ornamentals should be useful and fun for your mother. Definitely go for it! You should be able to do a lot of it without a lot of digging up of new areas; just tuck things in wherever there's a bit of space, unless your mother wants a huge veggie garden. Some pictures: peas and garlic in very early spring (garlic in pots is planted in the fall and stored in the unheated garage for the winter): A month later (mid-May): The veggie garden on the other side of the driveway late-May: Young carrots, green onions and lettuce: Peas ready for harvest: Part of the harvest: Bean towers are so ornamental as well as productive. I love them! Here is a link that might be useful: Yellow Jackets

Thank you Sharon and SoFl My daughter is the prettiest flower in my yard for sure And the name of that red rose is: Mandarin Ice - a Kordes Rose - and I bought it from Chamblee nursery 2 1/2 years ago. It's an continuously blooming rose bush and the roses blossom in clusters. Just divine! Very vigorous plant!