It must be nice to have enough water to WATER all of that.

Good topic Kippy,

I personally don't believe that landscaping and collecting are mutually exclusive. Certainly, there gardens that are primarily landscape gardens, some of the ones Mr. Bifano cited are likely just that. There are undoubtedly also gardens which are primarily just collections without thought or plan, other than desired varieties.

I know though, that there are also many gardens that are indeed both. Many members of the Forums have such gardens. Photos I have seen in posts of other member gardens including, but not limited to; Rosefollie's, Niptstress's, Daisy in Crete's, Anne Cecelia's and my own; to name but a few seem to indicate to me that they bridge the simple classification as one or the other. I think landscaping should be at least as much about creation, inspiration and love, as it is about design.

So Mr. Bifano's clients may have great landscape gardens, but I suspect they lack; if I may use the term, "a soul"; that only a true gardeners love, and creativity can provide. If the owner simply buys a landcape, that is all there is.

I am also aware of at least one huge celebrity, Martha Stewart by name, who has or had such a garden. I have an old book of hers, that details the creation of her gardens and rose garden, I think it is called Turkey Hill Farm in Connecticut. Ms. Stewart set out to collect old garden roses and the plans in the book were intended to do exactly that, showcase a rose collection in a beautiful country garden. The garden she created is what I would categorize as English country style, which is a style I try to emulate in my current garden here in Ontario. That book was indeed one of many influences on me when I began building my own (second) rose collection and garden. I will also note that her book showed that Martha Stewart was personally involved in the design, selection and acquisition of plants and yes, even the digging and planting if the photos are to be believed. She to this day, has a passion for roses and her collection is as much about cutting and fragrance as it is about the landscape, though that aspect is primary as well. Now I am not a particular follower or fan of Ms. Stewart. But her book on roses is one I keep and love to look at. No doubt, I will pull it out again for reference if and when I begin to create rose garden number three, as number two is being sold.

Cheers, Rick

A rose bed in my garden, 18 roses, 16 varieties, part of my collection, taken this morning

I think it is a continuum, with many gardens somewhere in the middle. I was lucky, because our garden had been "landscaped" decades before we moved in. Remaining were the large trees & bushes, a side garden sort of room with a circular path around a central round bed, a front formal garden, and lots of hardscape - brick paths, a long front "stone" wall (really cement made to look like stone). Brick lined flower beds remained all around the house also. We have expanded some of those beds, and added a few. I am basically a collector, if you count "collecting" roses which were already here! We have been able to fit the expanding rose collection into the beds, etc that were here already. Definitely a cottage garden look (and my color combinations are not always well thought out - I am more interested in cramming another rose into a bed where it will get some sun).

Jackie

I collect, but I want the garden to look good too.

Leaving aside all thoughts of my present disaster of a garden, my thought had always been not so much that it be landscaped, but that it be in harmony with its surroundings while at the same time choosing the roses I desired and loved the most. Fortunately bright yellows and apricots are not among my favorites, so my color palette of whites, creams, pinks in all its variations, mauves and purples not only pleased me but also blended beautifully into the background of large boulders, hills and valleys. "Landscaped" has an artificial ring to it, and planting in harmony with whatever surroundings you have is my idea of what a garden should be. Smaller fenced gardens actually can look better with a greater variety of colors than large gardens that are open to nature. What I like most is that the passion of the gardener is evident; that is what really makes or breaks a garden.

I'm definitely in "collector mode". Rather than swaths of repetition, I look for what I want "happening" in particular spots, then look for things that "do that". I have one possible multiple -- I ordered 'Louis Philippe' two years ago but I'm still not positive I got the right thing, so I included it again among others from a different nursery. With non-rose plants, the only multiples I have are things from seed -- anything bought as a plant was the only one of that cultivar I got. When I wanted Lamium, for example, I got one each of several cultivars and planted them down the shady strip against my house -- they all "do" the same thing, but I like variety, even if it's just subtle differences in foliage colors. But the most "anti-landscaping" thing I do is planting things bit by bit, rather than filling a space all at once. There's so many variables here that lead to plants not doing "exactly" what I thought they'd do when I planted them, so I adjust as I go. Eventually, I don't want to be seeing much of the soil surface by this time of year, and I'd like to cover as many surfaces as I can with plants. I don't think that look is something possible with "classic landscaping", but it certainly lends itself to a "collector" mentality. "Oh, look, a weed sprouted between the edging and the sidewalk. I bet I could rip it out and stick a Sempervivum there instead." That's me.

:-)

~Christopher

Any chance on getting the name of that Martha Stewart book??

As much as I enjoy landscaping design for fun, I would not want a yard full of 300 Icebergs. It is just not who I am. But I did start putting pinks and whites in the front yard. I keep collecting "the perfect rose for _______ space" and then realizing I have about 5 for one hole....oops. From the street view I wanted all the pinks and whites in various shades so I could collect and still have something that is semi landscaped. I also want to be able to open the new little windows and enjoy some really smelly roses. But I also have collected several that I love and want where I can see them from inside. I have been busy for the past few months on fixing up moms old house living/dining/hall. I still have a long ways to go. I had planned on hiring a co-worker for a side job for extra help, but he is over booked already so it is taking for ever. My tastes and moms are different and taking in account to all of her china/glass collection, and I changed color direction from what I thought of to start with. Turns out all those roses I am not so sure where to put them will probably look really good from inside the house.

Jeri, good news! No worries about where all that water is coming from, they have a well........

A "landscaped" rose garden has no soul. The Little Prince, had figured it out....

"they have a well........"

Which draws from groundwater in Louisiana?

It sounds like a circular argument. If you are defining 'landscaping' as something you don't like, then of course you don't like it. Since I consider Nippstress's first photo to be a picture of landscaping, I'm not making the same assumptions. IMHO, landscaping is using plants to fulfill design functions. It's very different from plant selection. That's when people choose a rose or another shrub, the same plants or different.

I think that motive for the acquisition of the rose factors into whether or not it is a collectible, or just part of landscaping. I believe in many cases, collectible roses can serve both goals.

For example, I purchased Astrid Grafin Von Hardenberg due to the historical significance (collectible), I am a major history buff. Comparatively, it is not widely grown in the states. There were other deep dark red roses that I actually find just as beautiful, and, for integrating with other plants in my yard to create a garden, per my vision, those other roses would likely be a better fit. They were not chosen, and AvH was carefully placed in my garden to preserve it and maintain my landscaping design ( overlap of collectible and landscaping).

Yesterday, I purchased a large bush rose because it needed to be heat tolerant, pink, and fill a specific space/need in the landscape design ( landscaping). I have no major attachment to this rose bush at this point other than hoping it will fill the big hole in my landscaping design, be healthy, and make things look pretty.

OTOH, if the collectible rose is given a " space", to be viewed without regard to what is around it , like artwork showcased on a prominent wall with a light shined upon it, for sure, at the point I think it is a collectible in the garden, although, carefully placed in the garden with respect to landscaping design, it is still a collectible....

I think many people do both; collect and landscape ( hardscape and softscape), especially when starting or re-designing their spaces.

Lynn

I would say I landscape. I never have (or would have) a swath of 300 of the same roses...or 30 for that matter. That's not landscaping, that's color blocking....IMHO.

If you're asking, do I choose a rose to add to a collection or one that will fit into the space, I would say a bit of both.

Due to our very cold winters, there are only so many roses that really grow well for us. And I have a weakness for medium pink and purple/pinks (like Gallicas) especially if they have a lovely fragrance!

What I usually do is look at a space, think about how the garden should complement the rest of the property and then I go look for plants. While I do go rose shopping once in a while (I live less than an hour from Northland Rosarium!) I usually end up filling the area around the roses with herbs and perennials (even shrubs) I find on clearance. I can't resist a sweet little plant on sale, especially if it fits my overall feel for the garden.

My hope is to create gardens that look like they are original to our property and were installed in the 1920s. Then, they were neglected for a while and now they're being brought back, but with a somewhat less formal feel. I would be thrilled if someone asked me, "How long have you been restoring these gardens?" :)

Mad Gallica- I can see why some landscapers might find plants interchangeable....but if you're designing a rose garden, you can't substitute a hibiscus for the rose.

I would say I have some plants that I change out, but they're very similar, depending on what's available and affordable that season.

Daisy or coneflower...maybe a black-eyed susan? Or lavender, Veronica, maybe catmint....possibly purple sage? I like lots of alyssum, but sometimes use lobelia...and I find marigolds and zinnias are great together or sometimes in place of each other. Lilacs are lovely, but butterfly bushes are nice for a smaller, later blooming shrub. And bee balm....you can never have enough bee balm :)

Our short summers and long days are so much different than some of my GW friends' climates that they sometimes tease me....how can you love bee balm? But it's beautiful, here!

I want to landscape with my collection. Does that make sense. I have roses that I want and I also want them to look nice and somewhat organized in my yard. I am working hard at it, but I'm not sure what it will look like. But that's part of the fun, right?

Same here Buford. I do have a lot of 'Iceberg', but mostly because it does so well here with so little care and will grow in a shady area.

In the Montecito area, the hills have a lot of sand stone boulders and out croppings, the warm yellows and tan toned yellows blend well. They are used in the home colors and repeated in the roses like 'Julia Child' and 'Butterscotch'. 'Royal Sunset' has more a apricot to terracotta tone and blends well with a Spanish tile roof.

I forgot the he uses a lot of 'Sombreuil'

While I can appreciate a formal landscape with mass plantings of a single variety, it would look very much out of place here surrounded by chapparel scrub where nature mixes it up beautifully. Our gardens surrounding the house hold many roses and many other plantings, including those special gifts from family and friends. I love to walk through and remember the those who contributed to the garden. And, then there are the offerings brought by my feathered friends. (I know for certain I have not planted any calendula but someone within a bird's flying distance surely has!). These gardens are then a willy nilly landscape arranged by colors that coordinate and containing natives and other plants that can survive here. Enabled by this forum, I soon found we had a collection of roses gathering in the potting cage that really needed to be in the ground. So, farther out from the house, we created a 'rose' garden. Back to my opening comment, a single species, formal garden just doesn't work in this environment. The gardens are continually evolving and over time this rose garden will move to the informal jumble landscaping theme of the other gardens.

I love landscaping design, at least I am still learning and trying. I started my ice hole rose garden with 250+ different colors of KOs and Carpet roses to be the base colors of my gardens, then I added on roses trees, ramblers/ climbers and DAs and old garden roses, HTs. I care about the street view, I care about the fragrance, I care about the tiers in the rose gardens...... I don't live on a hill or near big rocks, just have a flat lot with 10 trees. so i am trying to make a flat lot not looking flat with thousands of blooms. I love seeing French, Enghlish, Italian, and other people's gardens on this forum, it's just like fashions in life, after seeing more and more gardens, you can create your own styles with your own personal touch. I can't say I am good at it, but I am always learning about landscaping from everyone's garden. :-) Landscaping is art, is the next step of collecting. :-) I think sooner or later we will be all there, to have a well landscaped rose garden with well collected roses, one step at a time, one day at a time, one rose at a time.......

Oh, I completely agree about enjoying the beauty of landscaping, even in a basic form of swaths of repetition. A true artist marries a collector mindset with a landscaper's eye for design. The first such garden at that level which comes to my mind belongs to Daisy in Crete --her pics show true artistry.

:-)

~Christopher

dregae,

The name of the book I was referring to in my initial post is Martha Stewart's Gardening Month By Month (1991 Clarkson Potter). The link is for a review on a blog I found and includes a lot of images from the book with explanations of what Ms. Stewart writes about. The book was released just as MS was becoming famous and prior to the publishing of her magazine. A lovely book to browse.

Cynthia,

Great images, great landscaping and great rose collection. I love the artful chaos as well as the considered cohesion in your landscaping style. Your garden is beautiful in images, it must be spectacular live.

Aqua Eyes,

I agree with your musings about Daisy in Crete's garden images. I wish she would chime in and post some more images along with her thoughts.

Interesting perspectives and discussion everyone.

Cheers, Rick

A "landscaped" rose garden has no soul.

Of course it does, if done with, and cared for with, love.

Scale matters when considering landscape vs. landscape/collection. A garden of 10 acres has different needs than a garden of 500 square feet.

Sounds like we have a lot of "both" going on in our gardens, and I like Buford's comment of "landscaping with my collection". If can make the roses and other plants look like they belong together, that brings them in the direction of the landscape view. Lavender Lass - that would indeed be awesome to be asked about how long you were restoring this garden, but alas it would probably take a lot of knowledge on the asker's part about modern vs. OGR roses.
Rick - thanks for the complements, and I'm glad I like chaos since garden frequently deteriorates into such after a while. There are many times I look at photos like these and wish it looked that good now - the "wow" moments can be fleeting, particularly in our cold zone.
And Hoov, I blame you for all the drool on my keyboard - "a garden of 10 acres". Just think what we could do with that kind of space - starting with all those intriguing Gallicas!

Cynthia

If someone asked about restoring older garden, I think it would be the layout, rather than the content of the garden beds. Most people see the gardens from the road and can't make out individual plants and specific roses....unless they're very knowledgeable.

Old fashioned roses, many types of shrub roses and lots of shrubs and perennials give the garden a more relaxed feel. I'll have to post pictures...even if I don't get the weeding done, just to illustrate the layout of the beds.

But be kind....my husband was sick/in hospital and recovering for last three summers, so weeds have overtaken some of the older beds. Of course, that may be one reason it would look like I'm restoring an older garden, too :)

Rick, thanks very much for your kind comments. That is my goal, and sometimes I feel pleased. Other times, not so much. It is nice to be appreciated.

Some years ago I seriously considered a career in landscape architecture, but in the end decided to stick with what I was already doing and not start all over again in a new field. What most people do not realize is that landscape architects do not really see themselves as garden designers. They are architects of outdoor spaces. Some have very little interest in plants at all, other than as material to be used to achieve a goal. That goal is to manipulate outdoor spaces for some purpose. The purpose can be an excellent one -- to foster community interaction, to provide recreation or entertainment area, to enhance safety, to set off the dignity of a building -- but most of the time, displaying the beauty of the plants themselves to their fullest is only incidental to that goal. It takes a keen gardener-designer with a knowledge of plants and an appreciation for beauty to combine them both.

Hoovb, the quotes were to differentiate between my understanding of landscaping, which corresponds to Rosefolly's elegant description, and Mr. Bifano's, which is basically mass planting of same/ different cultivars.

I equate that with spectacular, dazzling & breathtaking but ultimately overwhelming, taxing and exhausting.

For rose gardens to have a soul, there needs to be a sense of mystery and intimacy....

Hence the allusion to the Petit Prince....

Mmm, I do both - I have a tiny little home garden which has been carefully built and designed to get the most possible out of a tiny space (36 square metres), including a bloody great greenhouse. The restrictions of space and budget forced me to behave in a much more considered way than my desire for growing as many different plants as possible. Working for customers (I was a landscaper and jobbing gardener for a long time) was essentially a mish-mash of basic maintenance and more grandiose design and build. Even those gardens with large budgets are never much good when the whole thing has just been bought in, but at every point, I do have a plan and a strategy, even over several years. However, my allotment has no landscaping apart from timber edged rectangular beds for veggies and is basically a collection of stuff (although I do attempt some vague thematic links).
The woodland is something else altogether - not really sure what yet.

True_blue and Hoovb, I think I get what you both seem to be communicating and agree with you both.

I started a thread over a year ago regarding the most beautiful garden I had seen; it was actually the place where my husband and I married. Hastings House was created by the owner of the beachfront property and she tends to and created her landscaped garden full of collectibles with love. Many people chimed in and wrote Mottisfont Abbey, the Huntington, and other large scale gardens. While many of these places are well-done ( by the staff paid to design, create, and maintain them) and beautiful, to me, many just do not have a soul. They are carefully planned and designed to create an aesthetic or whatever the goal is, but are absent the love and connection that goes into creating it that gives it the "soul". Maybe I am missing something...

Given the opportunity to tour Mendocino Rose's, or Daisy in Crete's garden, versus the Huntington ( of which I am a member nonetheless) or some other large scale garden, my choice would be Mendocino's or Daisy's garden. Don't get me wrong, I would ultimately tour all of them, but Mendocino and Daisy's gardens I believe are filled with wonder and delight, and have the ability to excite me. Their gardens have "soul".

Lynn

I'm still not sure what you all think has 'soul' and what does not....

For me, if you don't have bees buzzing, birds hopping around and happy worms in the dirt...it's just another group of plants.

Pretty, hopefully fragrant....but too lifeless. I love plants, but they are the beginning of a garden. All the life they support creates the soul, IMHO.

Lavender_lass

"All the life they support creates the soul, IMHO."

I agree with this statement, but not just relative to the birds, bees, etc., MY garden is OUR sanctuary; it is filled with love, joy and sometimes sadness. We are happy there and buzz around too. Sometimes a little wine is involved.. but oh well..

As I wrote, I am "connected" to my garden. In return, it supports me, my life and health too. There are many emotions that can be evoked as we experience some gardens. You feel a gardener's love, passion, benevolence, versus there being no real connection beyond the implementation of of design, and payment for services rendered or maintenance to create an aesthetic.

Lynn

I think the discussion needs to be about SCALE. The vast majority of us here don't have the type of raw acerage that these esatates have and if we do we don't have the same amount of it in garden space because we don't have the employees to maintain it.

A 6x6/8x8 singe old rose bush in a typical sized home garden IS a mass planting.

Looking for advice for the typical home garden of a few hundred sq ft from someone who works under a completely different set of circumstances--size, budget, ability to maintain--doesn't seem very productive to me. Rarely is the architect who designs spacious mansions going to be the same architect who designs wonderful things in small spaces. Its a different thought process.

Yes, as someone with a design degree I think there are things to learn from these types of gardens and gardeners--large mass plantings for your typical home garden is not one of them.

Good point, SubK3. We can get inspiration from the great gardens, but then think about scale before we adapt.

Anyone who has a chance to go on garden tours of smaller places could learn a lot from those as well. Sometimes neighborhoods will sponsor those as fundraisers. They can be well worth the effort.

Even grand estates need a small scaled "secret garden" for contemplation....