I used to visit my great-aunt and she had a big yellow rose bush in her front yard. She would cut it to the ground in fall and it would come back huge the next year. that is where my love for roses, especially yellow, started. Unfortunately after she passed away, the property was bulldozed and turn into a subdivision.

I don't think it's hereditary. I am the only one out of 7 children who is even remotely interested in gardening, and what got me interested was not the actual gardening! I love roses, always have, but for a while was scared away by the "they're hard to grow and are always sick" rumor. Mom started trying to do a plant nursery, so I started learning about propagation. Finally one day I started thinking, "I wonder how new rose 'breeds' are made", and I started researching. The next thing I knew I desperately wanted to start hybridizing and that drew me into the rose world. Roses then drew me into loving more colors, colors that before were too "girly", like purple and pink. Now I'm starting to want to grow eatable food with my roses....the addiction grows.

My mother was a stay at home mom on a budget, so she didn't have the time for flowers. We had a big garden, and that's where she spent her gardening time - she canned what we didn't eat. So I didn't see her flower gardening at all.

But I had an epiphany moment as to how beautiful roses are when I went to my great aunt's house on a mountain in Blairmore, Alberta. Her back yard was naturally raised by the mountain, and was covered with wild flowers of all kinds. She had a koi pond amidst it. It was like a fairy land. I was mesmerised by all the colors and shapes. I think that's where my love of gardening came from. She didn't have a single vegetable.

I guess that's just my interest in gardening in general. I think I got into roses when I read a book by a local nursery owner - Lois Hole of Hole's Greenhouses. She's passed away now from cancer. Anyway her book has wonderful pictures and detailed notes about each rose. Each rose takes up a whole page in the book. She has one section for hardy roses and another for tender. She has recipes for rose jam, etc. in her book. From this book, I zeroed in on roses as a passion.

Carol

I laid down old bricks in the back yard so I would have a spot to park my Vette. I planted wildflowers on both sides of the bricks to sort of hide the car. Worked out great and I got hooked on flowers. Then we moved and from wildflowers I moved on to roses to hide the fences. Not knowing anything about roses I just purchased Zeffies as they are thornless. Didn’t want to get cut up when mowing the lawn. They have provided us with years of enjoyment so I keep buying them. Taking care of them keeps me off the streets and out of trouble. I have never got the bug of having to have one of each.

I think I've told the story before of my first love of flowers. As a young child I stole a wild violet from my neighbor's yard. Before that I would swing on my swing facing her garden, just fascinated by how none of those flowers were planted in long stiff, straight rows like the vegetables and a few annuals were planted in my dad's garden. When that little wild violet (I didn't know they grew wild) bloomed not too far from my swing, I could resist no longer--dug up the violet, keeping its rootball fairly intact. I remember that the dirt was very dry, and somehow I knew that the transplanted violet would need lots of water. And somehow I had sense enough to plant it on the shady side of Dad's garage. Don't know where I got all that knowledge--don't remember anybody ever talking about such matters. Anyway, that violet grew for many years there, long after I had outgrown the swing, but I will never forget my "guilty pleasure" over my stolen violet.

The first I remember about roses--I was fairly young and we all went outside to admire the rose shrub growing along the south side of the porch. How it got there or who planted it, I have no idea, but I remember being fascinated by the white bloom--I believe it was a single, perhaps a single and a half. The next year when spring came, I ran out to admire our rose bush--and nothing was there! When I asked my mother, she said something about roses just could not survive our cold winters (in South Dakota), so we couldnt' grow roses. I still remember how disappointed and discouraged I felt about that news.

It was about 20 years later when I planted my first flower beds. Lots of tulips, a couple mums, and 13 Eutin rose bushes. I have no idea how I knew to do that--but after that first taste of real gardening, I never quit again.

My rose obsession, however, took another 20 years to develop. It just occurred to me one day that I was tired of growing perennials and really wanted to grow roses, so I went to the garden store and bought a Eutin and about 5-6 other roses (I remember Peace was among them).

And here I am today, with more gardens and roses (including 3 Eutins) and perennials and shrubs than I can keep up with in my retirement. Oh well, always gives me something to do!

Kate

As a child I did not like working in the garden - I always volunteered to do the vacuuming or dusting instead of weeding! We always lived in some sort of suburban development, and the "gardens" were very boring. At the age of 39 my DH and I moved into a house which had been in his family since 1905. It was on a 1/3rd acre lot, with mature trees, and a garden which had been gardened for over 80 years. I mostly ignored it until the first Spring, when the roses (all over the place - all over the garage, house, up the trees, in beds, and on the fences too) burst into bloom - over 60 of them, many very old. After recovering from shock, I decided I had to learn about them, and started reading books. I heard about the "Celebration of Old Roses" which is not far from here, went there and joined several rose societies (heritage and regular), and now I am addicted. I am sure that was helped by the fact that our climate is perfect for roses - they re-bloomers bloom all year here, the once bloomers start blooming in Jan. I don't spray, feed them once a year, and prune them very little (the very old warm weather roses like teas and chinas do not need practically any pruning). The only thing they really can't live without is water in our normal 6 months in the summer with no rain, but we have them on an automatic system, so that is not much work either.

Jackie

my grandmother was in a wheelchair all of the years that i knew her starting in or before 1952 she had a row of south facing windows and a rosebed underneath those windows

my earliest memories include her at those windows (they were open) and my grandfather with the roses, taking orders on what to do for them next they were pink, red, yellow and white hybrid teas i thought it interesting that though my grandfather had a 250 acre farm with cattle, and a huge garden, pastures to mow and most of the shopping etc to do- he would still take care of those roses for my grandmother..

my mother loved flowers and gardening she passed away at 79 from a heart attack while digging holes with a post hole digger to plant peonies in..

When I was a child, my mother grew several Queen Elizabeth in a central bed on their own in the front garden of our house in England. I remember the ugly, bare stiff canes, but I loved the blooms. The back garden, by contrast, was attractive, including peonies, iris, lily of the valley and a laburnum tree, with fruit and vegetables growing on a lower level, further away from the house.

One day, in my early 30's, by then in Australia, I happened on a book called 'Growing Old-Fashioned Roses', by Trevor Nottle. It was shortly after my husband had died, and this book became a life-line for me. I pored over it for hours, loving the look of the old roses, with their shrubbiness, and that led to exciting visits to nurseries over an hour's drive away that stocked these roses. I had a fairly small back garden, and it saw a succession of old roses (that weren't a success!). In the end, the ones that did well were the Tea roses (D de B, G Nabbonand, Ms T), and Crepuscule, and climbing SDLM. Around 40 others were discarded. I clung on to Francis Dubreuil and Mrs Wakefield Christie-Miller, even though they didn't do that well.

Then, for 14 years I lived in a house with very little usable land, and the only roses I had were 2 Crepuscules, one over an arched entrance, and another along the fence. 5 years ago, I saw my present house for sale, and thought I'd better buy it as I'd be very cross with myself if I never had the garden I wanted, with room to grow lots of OGRs. So here I am, having removed 15 roses, and severely chopped back the others because of a fungus problem, but still hopeful!

Trish

I love everyone's stories. Thank you for sharing them. I agree that gardening and everything that comes with it, is very therapeutic. I enjoy looking at this forum daily.

I grew up without roses, because my parents didn't like them. My very first rose was Queen Elizabeth. My grandfather gave me the rose on my 25th birthday in honor of my grandmother, Mary Elizabeth. I knew nothing about roses other than to prune in January and QE grew to 6+ feet tall every season. When I sold my house many years later, the new owner asked me what kind of fertilizer I used and I replied, "fertilizer"? I never researched how to feed the rose, because it bloomed so nicely and never gave me a speck of trouble. I still drive by the house to look at it sometimes and think of my grandparents.

When I moved to my new house, my neighbor encouraged me to grow a climbing rose. I stumbled onto Help Me Find Roses and became a primary member, so that I could enter multiple search criteria. Just for the fun of it, I entered every quality I wanted, i.e. climbing, disease resistant, continuous bloomer, thornless, both heat & shade tolerant, and fragrant. Well that is a lot to ask, so I didn't expect any search results returned, but one came up for Annie Laurie McDowell. I also was pleasantly surprised that the photographs posted by the breeder, Kim Rupert were in my neighborhood. An HMF member named Jay Jay suggested that I contact Kim to find out where to find his rose. He responded right away and I put myself on a waiting list at Burlington Roses. Kim delivered the propagation material to Burling himself to fulfill the orders on the waiting list. I later met Kim and he spent a lot of time talking about roses, how to care for them, the planning of my garden and a bit of history. As many of you know, Kim is a very generous guy and his enthusiasm got me hooked! I wanted to learn more, so I found this forum and my local rose society and began ordering roses. I'm now in my second year with them and still have a lot to learn.

Thanks so much. I am enjoying reading about your experiences very much.

I get it from both sides of my family. My Grandparents on my Dad's side had a small farm in their back yard. There were fruit trees, grape vines and all manner of vegetables growing there. Gramma had 5 big men to feed and she used that garden to do it.

On my Mom's side my Grandmother grew roses and African violets. The back yard fence was lined with many kinds of roses and she let me help tend them as a kid. Inside she had a sun room where every window sill was filled with African violets that bloomed away happily all year round.

My Mom got her rose bug from her Mother and there were always roses growing in our yard. At one time she had well over a hundred roses. I guess that's why it didn't seem to phase me when I got well over a hundred roses too. Just part of the family tradition, lol!

I got my love of gardening from my grandmother. My grandparents raised five children and were completely self supporting on a mixed farm. Raising fruits, vegetables, dairy, eggs etc. for sale was a full time job for my grandmother. In spite of that, she still found time to grow flowers. When I was quite small I distinctly remember a large perennial bed that lined her entire yard. It was in full bloom. That was when I also saw my first hummingbird. I have been in love with flowers and birds ever since. As for roses, I have always loved them partly because It is the flower for my month of birth and also the Canadian city that I grew up in was beautiful in the month of June because of all the climbing roses - usually red - that could be seen covering trellises and walls everywhere. To add more reason for my love of roses, I am very fond of fragrance - lily of the valley, lilac among others - but especially the fragrance of old fashioned roses. I am really enjoying reading this thread.

Sue

I had a wonderful mentor, an old widow who gardened on an adjoining lot. She saw I was interested in plants and mounted a campaign to convert me to roses. She had the charming habit of referring to all her roses as "he," while other plants were just "it." She was really smart and well-informed. Her library included about 20 ARS annuals that I read through that first winter. At that time, they were meaty little hardbacks that included scientific papers as well as gardeners' articles.

My father gardens a lot but he primarily grows vegetables. I am the only person in my family who is passionate about roses. Now that I think about it, the only person I know in my life that loves them. You should see me raving about them in front of people (friends and strangers) and I am sure a lot of them think I have an obsessive disorder...lol.

I actually don't know where it came from. I remember when I was 12, I saw a few roses (mainly red) grown by one of my dad cousin's wife. I loved them and try to pick up a few of the fallen branches (when no one was looking) and took them home and stuck it in the ground hoping it would grow. To my disappointment, it didn't.

Many years later, I bought my first rose, an apricot rose whose name I don't remember and I was fascinated by it. I've been borrowing rose books from the library and read that I should add peat moss and fertilize them. God knows, I've added tons of them in the middle of the summer and needlessly to say it shriveled like a mummy.

The next year I bought Queen Elizabeth, Electron and an unknown red mini rose and they are still with me today, probably older than most of my friends that I know. These three survived more than twenty years of bad weather, transplanting and they still thrive. I accidently broke that mini rose in half when I transplanted and guess what, now I have two of them. These three have blackspots and is probably not as vigorous compared to the new variety of today but they remain mostly trouble free and is a cheerful warm greeter to anyone that comes to our humble home.

My concept of a sanctuary is always a rose garden. This sanctuary became very important to me many years ago when I was a survivor of a horrible drunk driving accident or crash as the insurance company calls it as it really is not an accident. It completely devastated my life as a young adult both emotionally and physically because someone else decided to drink and drive. When I woke up from many months of coma, I have a desire to see this rose sanctuary. It is still an ongoing quest for me every growing season to create this sanctuary. I guess for me, it is a healing process and a reminder that horrible things happens to people in life with no fault of their own but one can survive by holding on to the beautiful things life has to offer.

JJpeace, thank you for telling your story and about your rose sanctuary. There is similar tragedy in my family. Your words are so true.

My parents grew hybrid tea roses but I never thought they were particularly attractive, planted in straight rows, no less. I fell madly in love with old roses the first time I visited the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden and saw a huge Mutabilis covered in flowers from top to bottom. After that I visited other rose gardens in San Francisco, bought many books and began my own rose garden. I had mainly old roses in every garden after that and my present garden of course also has them, although quite diminished in number over the last few years because of the drought and increasing heat radiation here. I don't want to ever be without them because to me a garden can never be complete without roses.

I have always loved flowers. Even as a little girl I would walk around the playground and pick tiny bouquets of "flowers" that were actually weeds growing amongst the grass and bring them to my mother and teachers. (I had actually forgotten about this until my mother reminded me).
When I first got my own place, a college dorm at Florida State University, I bought a potted African Violet that thrived. It just bloomed and bloomed and never was without flower. (I've never had as much luck with them since).

Every apartment I had afterwards I always had a potted plant here and there, but never had any luck with any of them. I still cant keep a houseplant alive, funny enough.

When I got married and bought my first house, the back yard was a barren mess of dirt and a few shrubs and palm trees. My mother came and helped me plant a little flower bed (impatiens) to spruce things up.

Ironically enough that little flower bed never really did all that well and only survived about 6 months. But by then I was hooked.

I first stared growing hibiscus. They do well in my area and they come in all sorts of beautiful colors and forms. I still love them. But they don't make good cut flowers. They close at the end of the day no matter what you do.

I had all sorts of annuals. Delphiniums, Geraniums, Incas, lobelia, impatiens galore and even a few flowering shrubs like hibiscus and salvia. Anything I could find at my local nursery. I actually didn't like roses because of their leggy thorny growth.

One day however I saw some huge potted roses for sale at Home Depot. They were 3.5 feet tall and full of blooms. I brought home a red one (which turned out to be Oklahoma) and it grew well for me despite me knowing absolutely nothing about roses.

The smell was intoxicating. And each time a little bud would appear it was like opening a present every morning.

I was hooked with cutting them and making bouquets in the house. I then got a hold of a Belinda's Dream (a great beginner rose) which bloomed profusely for me. After such great experiences (and thinking all roses grew this well/easily) I started buying almost every rose I came across at the home depot. If I liked the color, I'd buy it.

But the roses soon started to decline. I knew nothing of black spot or thrips or any of the other things that plague roses. My Oklahoma was pretty disease resistant, as of course was Belinda's Dream, but Joseph's coat was a spindly mess and may of the ones I brought home soon turned into pathetic thorny twigs. Soon people started to tell me "you can't grow roses in Florida". Well, my rose garden begs to differ.

I was determined to have my roses. I started reading everything I could find on rose culture. But I never really wanted to deal with spraying. After a few failed attempts at growing a spray free garden, I realized I would never have the rose garden I highly coveted. So I started to get serious about rose growing. I now have over 100 varieties. Some do better than others, and I don't drive myself crazy spraying (I only spray when absolutely necessary) and I really enjoy my rose garden.

I now have all types, OGR's, Ausitns, HTs, Floribundas, Grandifloras, minis (they never do well for me LOL) and I keep experimenting. My garden continues to improve every year and I hope to one day have a dream garden like those I see in books. But even if mine is always a bit flawed, I'm still grateful that I can even grow roses and I'll never give up on them.

It popped out from nowhere, just wanted a garden filled with bright colors, above avg, unique , delightful & cheerful in many ways.......garden statement is just like fashions in life, it shows everything about a person......have you been dressed neatly? Does your clothes go well with your hair style? Do your shoes match your clothes? Does your fashion go with your car, bike, scooter, motorcycle? Everything in life comes with fashions.......and passions. :-)

When I was younger and my family first bought a new house it already came with two rows of luxuriant old rose bushes. The Sterling Silver ones produced beautiful pale purple huge blooms that had a pleasant smell.

I've been a gardener or around gardens all my life, so it was inevitable I'd grow at least something when I got space of my own. My father grew up on a farm and we always had an extensive vegetable garden in the back as well as fruit trees, and he coached me patiently on techniques in growing those plants (my brother never took to it). My mom planted annuals and other flowers around the yard, and for a short while had some body bag roses that she tried to grow in one patch, but as we've all seen from many of these body bags, they didn't survive long (getting mowed over by my father by mistake probably didn't help). So like most of the world, I grew up with the notion that roses were fussy and not much worth bothering with.

When we bought our first house, I was determined to plant the entire front lawn in flowers and blooming trees, and the nursery recommended some shrub roses as landscaping. I didn't distinguish them much from any of the other shrubs or trees except to note that roses weren't that hard to grow after all. Champlain became my "gateway drug" rose because of this.

When we bought our current house, I was thoroughly hooked on perennials and bulbs and selected a house at least half because of the generous sized yard (with NO Virginia Creeper, curse the stuff!). I planted a Champlain of course, but didn't think much about roses for the first year. Then I got to looking at the main back garden and thinking that it needed more height. Hmmm, roses are bushes, they have height. Enter a local nursery with very reasonably priced HTs and my introduction to David Austin roses as well. Once I appreciated the diversity and still relative ease of most roses, I was truly hooked. Not that I don't love my perennials and bulbs as well, but they don't really take much of my thought any more (and I don't hang out on those GW forums - they're usually easy enough there's not much to talk about). Always plenty to talk about with roses, and the nicest people to boot!

Cynthia

When I was small, I used to visit my favorite aunt wuth a huge rose garden full of only 1 type of red rose . As it bloomed my aunt would collect roses and made rose syrup out of them and then give a big bottle of rosé syrup to my mom. That used be the only summer drink I loved . That's how it started for me. My mom is a gardener too but not for roses. She is into veggies a lot.