P.S. d-d - I haven't read Hogarth on the Line of Beauty - I'll add that to my winter reading assignment from Ink re Dumbarton Oaks, and serpentine.... :-) A quick thought though from looking at the Wikipedia link you provided: One of the illustrations on the right side shows the line of the spine of the artist. The artist has a rather exaggerated bend at both his knnes and back; leaning precariously backwards! The line of the spine in a normal upright stance would be curved but considerably less so than that example. And to make the line of the spine a more pronounced serpentine, you are condemming the poor owner of the spine to an extremely painful disability! So, it seems to me - based on that quick scan of the wiki entry - that the line is most beautiful if it only deviates a small amount from the straight line that large deviations could well result in the painful opposite of beauty! So I think the amplitude of the curves and the distance they cover must be important factors in whether the curve looks attractive or not.

[URL=http://s1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/Hampton%20Court/?action=view&current=DSC03403.jpg][IMG]http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/Hampton%20Court/th_DSC03403.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/Hampton%20Court/?action=view&current=DSC03405.jpg][IMG]http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/Hampton%20Court/th_DSC03405.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/Hampton%20Court/?action=view&current=DSC03427.jpg][IMG]http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/Hampton%20Court/th_DSC03427.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/Hampton%20Court/?action=view&current=DSC03436.jpg][IMG]http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/Hampton%20Court/th_DSC03436.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/Hampton%20Court/?action=view&current=DSC03439.jpg][IMG]http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/Hampton%20Court/th_DSC03439.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/?action=view&current=DSC03389.jpg][IMG]http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af324/miclino/th_DSC03389.jpg[/IMG][/URL] I think you mean the border in the formal garden? Not a fan of that style anyway and it did seem like you could pack more into the space. I assumed it would fill in as the season progressed? Loved the spring blooming space though which bordered the maze.

For sericia, next spring watch the color of the thorns; sericia ptericantha and R. pteragonis are two possibles. Then spend some time looking at many, many pictures of R. canina. In your part of the world it's a widely used rootstock and I'd guess that four or five of yours are slightly different caninas. (This fall they'll have good hips for making jelly). Something else to remember: the garden doubtless now has more shade than when it was first planted. This sort of situation may reduce or totally stifle rebloom, so when you label a rose a once bloomer, just remember that with more sun it might be a repeater.

As I wrote in the other thread we already have that disease in Sweden. I guess it came to my parts about five years ago, and almost all ash trees got infected at once. Only trees standing far from other ash trees seems to be unaffected now, but most ash trees here grows together along streams and lakes and they are all dying. What happends is that twigs and thin branches dry up. The tree grows new shoots further in where their branches are still good, but after a while those will die to. It makes the trees appear ugly with new, often already dying twigs growing from thick branches. After some years the tree will be exhausted and dies, but it might take several years for trees growing in good spots. Many trees are still alive yet after five years, but they are struggeling. What I am still wondering is whether all ash species are affected, or if some of them are immune, more or less? We do only have fraxinus excelsior growing wild here, and other species are only seldom grown in gardens or parks.