Hello! Have you ever been to Birr Castle + Gardens? I did a practical month there a few years ago - they were restoring the whole garden to its former state - it should be magnificent by now. The owner of the castle (Lord Ross)is a enthusiastic plant hunter and he sometimes overdoes it a bit ;-) would be nice to hear other comment's on this garden....

do you remember the guy that posted a few years back claiming that gardening in Texas was the same as gardening in Ireland because our climates are the same? I still laugh at that one. Those gardens are awesome! Tally HO!

Back when I was a newbie in my career as a 'rosemaniac' (mid/late 90s), Sean McCann was a prolific contributor to various rose publications. He was always one of my favorites, and a great writer. I also think that he may have participated in the old GW or the old rec.gardens.roses, or maybe both. Thinking about all of those old guys who contributed to my rose education melts my heart: Jim Delahanty, Bob Martin, Bill Hillman. There were many others. Sorry for the trip down memory lane, but seing Sean's name sent me back :-D

The beauty of it is you can do whatever you like. Try one thing, morph to another, create your own style etc. I put in our rose garden as an experiment. Had a bed that was overgrown with trees and large bushes. So thick you couldn't walk in it. There were rocks in the base but you couldn't see them anymore as it was so over grown. We pondered what to do with it and decided to try roses. They worked out spectacularly. If I'd known they would do so well I would have probably done more of a formal style. But I am very happy with what we got. The plants are all healthy and put on a nice display without much work. Sometimes there is a rose that I don't like for whatever reason and it gets given away and replaced with another (my husband hates this as he is the one that has to dig it up). We also put roses in various other parts of the yard, some rock, some mulch. For whatever reason they do not do well in mulch in our yard. So we have moved some of them to the rock bed and abandoned the holes. Here was yesterday. Sorry for the picture through the window screen. This was it last June. The idea was that you could walk down a curved path in the middle. The Love Song (small purple rose front and center) was originally a yellow Golden Wings. It got big really fast. After I planted it I saw a mature one at the Denver Botanical Gardens and knew we would have to take it out of that location. Ended up giving it away because the flowers were beautiful but decimated by Japanese Beetles every day so there was no pleasure in it. Sally Holmes which is the white low growing shrub at the center back is the same way (eaten so quickly). But it is failing due to it's persistent lack of obtaining size. I had originally put three of them back there, thinking they would create a wall of white as a back drop to the rose garden and they don't thrive here. We should probably take that out also. Dainty Bess, mid way back on the left is also eaten quite quickly. But it is so pretty I've left it. However I could see putting in something like Moonlight Romantic in it's place.