'Mutabilis'... rather sad as this is the final photo, as it will be leaving me this Autumn... I feel I need a change from it..

Part of my dry garden border taken today... in total it's about 60 foot by 3 or 4, 8 foot at widest... never irrigated and very dry stony ground.... some roses thrive, 'Lady of Shalott' and 'Gruss an Teplitz' in shot by wall... otherwise very much for Lavenders, perennials, grasses...

Phlox, paniculata Hydrangea.... taken a couple of weeks ago...

..this Geranium 'Patricia' flowers all summer...

recently planted 'Blush Noisette'... I've got 2 now...

'Miss Lowe's variety'... I love it when it's dark red.. masses of buds to come out...

''Irene Watts'...[Pink Gruss]... and a touch of mildew...

'Kew Gardens'

not a great show, but I hope you found something of interest...

Wow, your garden is beautiful! :-) Just planted Lady Hillingdon in a pot last night( rose band ), can't wait for her to grow up! My GDF has no bloom, planted this summer in the garden as a band, I hope yours repeats well for you.

Wow, what beautiful mixed borders with roses you created. I love all of them. The one bordering the walkway has such a nice variety of plants with different textures. Just lovely! Thank you for sharing your garden. Also, I have never seen such a beautiful intense gold color on my Lady of Shallot.

Gorgeous! So nice you live in a mild, rose friendly climate. Mine are mostly still dormant because of our drought and recent very high temps - we are just trying to keep them alive until the winter rains (hopefully!) start.

Do ants eat roots? I was not aware of that. When ants get on my roses it is usually because they are farming - they actually move some sort of bug whose "nectar" they like up onto the plants, and then the ants climb up to eat. I just spray them and their "cattle" off with water.

Jackie

Jackie....thanks.... I often find ants nests at the base of my roses, especially in my dry garden border there, they love those conditions... they throw up some of the mulch around the base of the rose, that's how I know they're there.. and when I rummage around they swarm out... I think they must eat some feeder roots, as I can tell the rose suffers... poor foliage, and bloom, stunted growth...older established roses are not so affected I think...

Summers/Karen...thanks again.... my GDF blooms twice per year, the flush now is about half what I get in June.... but I still love it..

Very nice, Marlorena - is that a molinia I see in your dry garden? Have just been planting a few of these myself (Skyracer).

Astonishing that you get a second GdF flush (although you are probably a bit more together on the deadheading than I am).

Have sworn off Austins, but Kew Gardens stretches my (biased) principles to the limit.

I had to smile when you opened your post with "not much to show for my efforts" and then proceeded to show us a magnificent garden. The narrow border is beautifully done, a really creative area with wonderful color composition. Your Bonica a a true work horse, what a profusion of blooms. My garden is jealous of your garden......

Ingrid, thank you,... too kind....I love tending that narrow border even though it's full of mistakes..... it'll always be better next year... and I never seem to have enough roses to photograph...

Campanula... thanks.... no I don't have a Molinia... I think it might be too dry for one there... in shot are a Miscanthus and a Pennisetum... further down but out of view is a huge Stipa gigantea, about 8 foot with nearly 100 flower spikes but I can never get it in the photo... it dominates the whole length of border and everything else revolves around it... I couldn't garden without it..

Lovely pix, Marlorena.

I'm also curious about the ants since the ants I'm familiar with don't behave that way. Like Jackie, if I see ants on plants, I look closer to see if there are aphids or some other pest they're farming.

But if they're nesting at the base of plants, they will- I'm guessing- be tunneling, and if roots are no longer in contact with soil, that's not such a great thing.

There was a documentary about the biologist, E O Wilson on PBS the other night, and some biologists found an abandoned (leaf-cutter?) ant colony, and to see how extensive and deep the 'city' was, researchers forced cement into the tunnels until at capacity. Once it had dried, they started digging... and digging.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/03/concrete-poured-into-ant-colony-reveals-insect-megalopolis/72512/

I doubt you have anything on that scale(!), but tunneling on a lesser scale may be a problem for your roses' roots? Some ants have an aversion to cinnamon; I wonder if a sprinkling around the base of your roses might encourage your ants to move elsewhere?

Perhaps other British gardeners have encountered this situation, and can offer suggestions.

Good luck,

Virginia

PS No rain at the moment, but the forecasters keep talking about a 'firehose' of moisture funneling water from Joaquin into the Carolinas, and their maps all show Charleston as the likely 'target'. We'll see. After more than a day of rain and with unexpectedly cool weather, it was a good morning for weeding.

Virginia...thanks... what an incredible video about the ants nest... I've never seen anything like that...marvellous creatures really when you see something like this...

..... hopefully mine aren't quite so extensive although they are all over our garden... I'm familiar with the ants farming the aphids, but many of my roses, new and established have nests at the base... on grafted roses they usually grow through it after a while, once that rootstock takes off, but it stunts the growth for a time...

... my worst is an own root 'Unermudliche' which stopped growing this summer, defoliated, and when I checked, it was loose in the ground, and then I saw the ants, so they're quite destructive to young roses.... it still hasn't recovered...

...it's quite a problem here, it's the first garden where I've had this issue... my neighbours use ant powder but I can't do that sort of thing.... along my front dry border in the photo, I have ants nests in various places along the verge by the road as well.... and also in the brick wall there at the front...

I'm going to try the Cinnamon, I've got lots of that available.... thanks for the advice...

Marlorena, thank you for the garden tour. What a beautiful garden. The roses and companion plants are delightful.

Krista, thanks so much....

Lovely pics, Marlorena. I particularly like Lark Ascending - beautiful name helps too!

I googled 'ant infestations' and there was an interesting article detailing all sorts of natural solutions to deter them - garlic, lemon and pepper sprays amongst them. Good luck with getting rid of them.

titian, thanks... I googled it and up came a thread from here, from a few years ago, which I found very interesting....old thread

...several members have had the same problem.... it seems necessary to use some kind of granules to be rid of them completely, but I just can't do that...

...they damage the roots of the roses with their burrowing, creating air pockets... maybe if we get a cold winter it might kill them off... I might lift one of my roses tomorrow and look see what's underneath.... maybe take a photo....

I love to see your garden Malorena, beautiful transition into fall.

Lovely, photos and garden Marlorena! Thanks for the pick me up.

Ninkasi/Verdi Guy... thanks so much....I'm glad you liked them...

Oh how did I miss these. Simply georgeous. Some roses look so lovely in the climate they were bred for but I'm sure the gardener has something to do with it also. Funnily I like that Lady Hillingdon buds picture a lot. You have an eye for colour. The Blush Noisette looks lovely, I have one on order but I'm sure it won't perform like this in my conditions. Kew Gardens is a rose I'm tempted about. The Lark Ascending I have but has been sulking since I planted it bareroot in 2013. Maybe it's the spot or the climate although lately it seems to be waking up. I have better success when I have the bareroots planted first in a pot for a year or so. I can very seldom get the 'proper' colours out of my Austins, I'm sure it's a combination of the climate and my alkaline conditions.

Keep them coming!

...thanks Seil and Nik very much.... I'm glad you liked them... it's always fun to compare the same roses in different climates I think...

...we've lost our Indian summer and it's gone quite autumnal here now... batten down the hatches time...

So lovely! I also have a pink Gruss/ Irene Watts so have been watching your rose's progress with interest. Your 'Patricia' geranium and roses together caught my eye. What a nice combination! I am planning to add a 'Rozanne' geranium to my pink rose bed so this gave me a good idea of how it would work.

grr ants - my whole allotment is on a huge ants nest. True, they are swinish for young plants but once they have a decent root system, ants rarely kill off plants. They are actually much worse when you get an invasion in a pot.

Mmm, stipa - mine is getting old, congested and enormous - am reading a spring split and might just try the slightly smaller one, 'Kleine Fontaine''

Huge grasses are fabulous as woodland edgers (especially because I have steep land drains) and I have even found myself considering a New Zealand pampas grass as well as the enormo-miscanthus saccharifolius. Since stray phragmites colonise some of the edges, this style, along with gigantic rudbeckias, silphiums, vernonias and so forth (all those huge perennials I love and have brutally squeezed into too small spaces) can be given their head.

Oh, I weakened, after hanging out 4 years for the martagons to bloom (still another couple to go) , and ordered a bunch of those expensive hansonii X hybrids (Arabian Knight, Russian red etc.)

And mertensia.

Have kept my rose order to a measly 4 (but have a number of well-rooted hardwood cuttings to transplant for free).

If one is not averse to drenching the soil with a (relatively 'mild') organophosphate poison, chlorpyrifos granules is the trick for ants. Comes under various brand names. If you are averse to such things disregard this advice. Yes Henry, I know, even mild versions of organophosphates are not good for us..

...Not for me I'm afraid Nik, I simply don't kill anything, not aphids, molluscs and definitely not ants.... I just can't.... I regard black spot as my worst enemy, or my whimsical nature... but thanks for the advice though, anyway.... I always appreciate that..

Kes... so glad you liked the photos.. and those Geraniums are so useful in our gardens.... do give them a try if you can...

Campanula.... yes I agree about the ants, they shouldn't be a problem when the roses are more established....

...best of luck with pampas grass, if you grow it... I'm tempted to say rather you, than me..on that one...

Absolutely beautiful! I hope my Lady of Shallot grows up to look like yours. Your yard is gorgeous!