I understand completely. I used to have 205 varieties of roses and multiples of several of them but I'm not the least unhappy to have 195 this year and I expect the number to decrease. I've reached the stage when the overall look of my garden is more important than the individual flower, however beautiful. I realized that I don't have the time or the energy to care for all roses the way they need.

Besides, my season is short and I need some fall color and evergreens more than anything. I've enough spring colors and scent from lilacs, honeysuckles, philadelphus, viburnums and early roses but hardly any bright fall colors. It is getting a bit late, I'm 72, but I've planted orange barberries, red Japanese maples, various sorbus with beautiful berries and bright leaf colors and small pines and other evergreens. I live in Sweden where we spend much time inside and need something to look at from the windows. I suppose it's different in a warm climate when you can have roses the whole year. I have space enough but my garden has to work for longer than the rose season.

Several years back, I was closing in on 150 roses but have been gradually cutting back & I'm at about 90 now which after fertilizing today seems a lot more realistic. Shovel pruning those that don't have good disease resistance, those that don't thrive in my area & those that I don't like their quantity/quality of bloom or growth habit.

Glad you realized you reached your limit before it was to late...lol

Do you all have really big yards or are most of your roses potted? Just curious.

I have about a quarter acre city lot & I'm glad it isn't any bigger because I have observed that gardens expand to fit the size of the lot you own. I have several garden friends who live in the country with multi-acre lots & they are always planting something new, something on sale, something free from someone else's garden, etc. because they have room for it. All my roses are in the ground except for 5 minis & one floribunda. Because I'm in z4, my roses get planted a lot closer than in a warmer zone, for example HT's are 18' apart due to major winter die back & short growing season.

I have well over 200 roses on 0.3 acres. There is actually a wide variety of plants beside roses--lilacs, peonies, irises, lilies, hydrangea, azaleas, four o'clocks, pansies, daffodils, phlox, and rhododendrons.

I've never measured my backyard (the side yards are rather narrow and the front yard smaller and too shady for roses--lots of hydrangeas along the sides and front of the house)--roses are in back. To me, my back yard is "typical" or "average" but who knows what is typical here as compared to where you live? So I'll say, I'm sure it is not a large backyard, nor a small one, so that leaves medium-sized--or maybe medium to somewhat small.

Whatever it is, all roses are in the ground. The only potted plants I have are some annuals that I move around the garden to wherever color seems to be lacking--like the purple and white petunias adding a shot of dramatic color to a pastel rose planting (Scepter'd Isle on the left, Easter Basket on the right).

Kate

I know how you feel as well. I had more than 2000 orchids at one stage and now I only have about 150 of them as I simply don't have that much time any more. It's better to look after a few really well than have so many that you cannot get time to enjoy.

I too have reached my limit. If I get anymore I will have to shovel prune one. If I could get my weeds under control I'd be fine. Weeds cause me more work than my roses. Sooooo hate dealing with them. I'm thinking if I quite ordering roses in the spring I'd use that time getting mulch and paper down instead of planting.

I have close to 40 roses and I am beginning to think it is too much too. Two things I've noticed about my garden today is the lack of other plants since I keep buying roses and that the colours are overall the same.

Mine is predominantly light pink and light yellow. I didn't realize it when I bought most of them because I was so captivated by each variety blooms and uniqueness. I see more colours in the spring but when the weather gets hot most of the light colours fades a lot and become overall white. This is especially true for most of my austins. To reduce impulse buying spree in the future, I am going to stick with roses that are unique in blooms and colours ,and vigor and disease resistant.

Oh ok, I understand now. I was thinking wow, 200 or so roses, their yards must be huge! I didnt think about the growing zones. I could only fit 5 bushes along a very long fence but they are on fortuniana and my zone will double their size. Thanks

I think a more saturated color here and there, like a crimson could add a bit of interest, jjpeace. I just planted a Basye's Purple next to an Agnes (yellow) and I think they will enhance each other.

Sara-Ann, I completely understand! Rose gardeners can never just have one! I went from 37 to 103 this year, 15 of these on our new "deck garden". I have to work a lot but it has been a great way to unwind. However, this year I have found myself stressing over getting different garden tasks done. This goes against one great reason I garden in the first place! Although I plan to continue to expand the garden in the future, my goal the remainder of this season and next year is make my time in the garden more meaningful by cutting down on tasks that take more time such as watering, weeding, etc. I am going to putting in drip irrigation, replace my more disease prone varieties, etc.

@jjpeace - I know what you mean about the colour thing. And I'm not just referring to roses. I had a thing about planting a lot of whites, light greens & yellows. However, from afar the effect lacks pizzazz, it was just a wall of green & white everywhere. Close up it looked great against the dark mulch. But as a whole things where not standing out. I'm now incorporating more colour through foliage & flowers. Even the size of the foliage is important.

Seems you've had a tough time in your garden this season, Sara-Ann, from vagaries in the weather & troubles that's caused. Gardeners are in the same boat as farmers - dependent on whims of weather & the opportunistic pests & diseases they bring. Very glad I don't garden for a living, for the pickings would be slim some years. In a pleasure garden, like mine, I choose to welcome the abundant seasons & weather the lean ones as they come & go. Keeps my spirit steady along with my will to continue strong. I don't strive for perfection, which is fleeting at best, but rather for harmony within the whole, which is more often attainable by mere mortals.

I don't need roses per se. I do need beauty, and that I find in the magnificent interplay of wild Nature & cultivated gardens. Roses contribute greatly to that beauty with their very high vibratory frequencies - their songs, if you will - expressed most clearly through the vibrancy of their flowers & perfume, but truly an emanation from their spirits. No wonder the rose is long considered the queen of love & beauty and we include them in our gardens.

Those of us willing devotees to roses eventually run up against the barrier of simple availability - be it space, time, effort required or any other shifting circumstance among a list of many. This is also true of gardens, and life, in general, is it not?

The rule of diminishing returns comes into play here, too. When more effort is routinely given to ongoing maintenance than you can justify by time enjoying the results, it's often appropriate to rebalance the equation of work involved & pleasure derived. This happens routinely for me, in cycles, in various aspects of my life. I have to take stock & reinvent myself periodically, charting a new course.

Over the past few years, you've been reevaluating your garden & your goals within it. You went no spray, chose to add roses with a reputation for health & winter hardiness, switched to a preference for own root roses in your environment - quite a lot of changes. (Encouraging & waiting for baby own roots to grow up is an art all by itself.) Your renewed garden was beginning to chug right along & you were definitely getting the hang of it as evidenced by your success. Then this Spring's weather threw a wrench in the works. Discouragement is surely understandable, especially when you wanted your roses in top condition for visitors recently, and the weather (and thus the roses) just didn't cooperate. Reminds me of the Paul Simon lullaby, St. Judy's Comet:

Well, I sang it once, and I sang it twice. I'm going to sing it three times more.

I'm going to stay till your resistance is overcome.

Cause if I can't sing my boy to sleep, it makes your famous daddy look so dumb.

Look so dumb. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTxCqbfreTA

In theory, 100 healthy, hearty & easy to grow roses would take no more maintenance than 50 persnickety ones than require a lot of intervention to thrive. The trick, of course, is finding those healthy, hearty & easy to grow ones enthusiastic to thrive in your garden. You're definitely on to that in active pursuit of such gems - the main reason behind recent additions. Your mission - as you stated - is to determine which of your current roses will meet your requirements over time. Consider it an experiment...yourself an explorer...all part of the great adventure.

Vasue, I believe you've got me figured out! I think one of the main things about this rose season that discouraged me so much, is the fact that even though most of my roses bloomed during the spring flush, blackspot was already going strong, usually it waits awhile. I was so looking forward to those beautiful blooms on blemish free bushes, but most of them were just horrible looking.

If this was my first year growing roses I have to say I would seriously consider giving up. I'm glad I have some history of better roses to think back on. Last year I had amazing flushes in the spring and they even kept blooming into the summer because we had milder temps and picked up again in the fall. I thoroughly enjoyed my roses last year. I always had a vase or two of blooms on the table.

This year hasn't been much fun. The bad growing season for me started when the gardner sprayed my yard with herbicide instead of the neighbors yard and I thought I completely lost 21 roses. They died completely back to the ground in late March and only now have leafed out fairly well.

This year blackspot took over before I had the first blooms. I had almost no flush this spring because of the terrible weather. Drenching, drowning rains and with all the flooding the water just stood there and had nowhere to go. 60-70mph winds broke canes and destroyed the few blooms I did have. Now the temps are spiking and everything is shutting down. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some kind of flush in the fall.

For now I'll keep watering them and talking to them to encourage them to just hang on as they handle this heat. I've already started looking ahead to next spring.

Yes, I'll probably add more roses next year because I have a short gardening memory and I can't resist just one more. 139 and counting.

Me too, I am running out of room, and haven't been to gym for 2 months! Have been gardening after work until dark......I have about 600 roses, and I hand water them everyday after work unless we had rain for hours.

Hang in there, Beth and Sara-Ann, Vasue is right. You have had more than your share this year. It will get better! It has to.

I can't imagine having to water 600 roses by hand, Summersrhyth. You must have an awesome garden but I can't imagine pruning them at springtime. You should start your own nursery and breeding roses.

Hah! I'm one of those crazy rose ladies with over 1000 roses... in fact closer to 2000.. Yikes!! Yep, I tell myself all the time I'm getting too old for this $h#t! But what do I do? keep on adding. Well, no more. I seriously have got to stop! I lost my "real" job last yr, and my husband's job was eliminated and he was demoted to a lower pay level for almost the whole last yr. Thankfully he just got put back on the other job this week. Been tuff to keep going financially, (unemployment ran out in Feb) so that stopped me dead in my tracks (for awhile). And even with having a LOT more time on my hands, I still haven't been able to keep ahead of the yard work. The deadheading, the weeding, the much-needed mulching and fertilizing (that still hasn't gotten done), the planting of the new beds.... on and on. I will never ever get ahead of it all. I definitely have to go back to work, but it's been hard to find a job... even a part-time one at my age, my overweight-ness, and difficulty lifting over 40lbs regularly. (I work in retail) They always pass me up for younger, stronger applicants. Anyway, I know at some point I will get a job and then I will have less time to do this stuff. And then I will be reeeally frustrated. Can't quite retire yet, but I figure by the time I do, I'll be too tired to do all this rose stuff. So, I definitely HAVE TO STOP and in fact should get rid of many of the under-performers and the unknowns and the duplicates, etc... But it's sooo hard.... When you see those beautiful, perfect blooms, everything changes...........

I had well over 200 roses when I lived in the country on 40 acres with my DH. Not that I used all those acres for roses as all of mine were in many beds close to the house (safer from deer that way.) It all crashed when DH passed away and I lost the will to take care of the roses for a year...or two...and then found that trying to catch up was beyond my physical ability and available time outside of my 40 hour work week. Now I live in a village in a small house on a small lot. I told myself that I would only have 30 roses in this new garden and accordingly I moved that many of my healthiest and hardiest from the old house. Well, almost 4 years later I have 65 roses and countless perennials mixed in with them (heavy on daylilies.) It had been a struggle, too, up til this year - and I almost lost control again to no weeding and no fertilizing last year. This year I started the season with two new knees and I've knocked it all back into shape with a smile on my face, pain-free at last! I think it is a manageable size for me and I work at removing something before I add something, no expansion allowed. But it is clear to me just how easily I can slip into not taking care of what I have so I am resolving to keep it easy, keep it fun. What was it Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry said? "...A man's got to know his limitations."

I only have around 35 roses.

But I wish I could have around 70.

No light in most of my yard and not enough in my two rose beds.

I'm much like you in that, I would find 100 plants to be my limit. I know myself and that would just be too much for me!

I'm also very guilty of finding a new hobby or joy in life, going way over board with it. And then being overwhelmed with how much I've got.

That's why I took a break from these forums right after I started posting. I realised I was buying roses like crazy and needed to take a break. Really evaluate what I wanted from my rose beds instead of buying everything that grabbed my attention.

I'm back because I've decided my few remaining spaces are going to reliable bloomers on vigorous bushes. And the phase where I want every rose in sight is over.

I applaud you too for being able to take care of that many.

What themes did you notice in your roses after all this? Any colour trends?

I tend to gravitate towards mauves, whites, and peach/apricot blends.

It's interesting reading all the comments. Beth, so glad your husband is back at his old job with full pay. Wish you the best in finding a job. These times can be tough. Your roses are a delight! Seems like some of the varieties have the prettiest colors I've seen, I enjoy your threads so much.

When it comes to roses, timing can be very important, for me anyway. The summer of 2012 was a horrible year. It was so dry and hot here, we were having wild fires everywhere, in the middle of July, something I don't recall seeing before. Why I thought 2013 would be a good year to add a bunch more roses, I don't know, but I was determined. You might say I got carried away, I ordered and planted sixty roses, and I admit even at the time it seemed like I was overdoing it a bit. But, I got lucky that year! Even though we were still in a drought. we had some relief, and actually received enough rain to help, so those sixty roses did pretty darn good. I was very happy about the way that season turned out. 2014 and 2015 were both pretty good years, but had their issues. I don't expect perfection and I was pleased with both seasons overall. I in no way want to give up, I just want things to be manageable, and I do know what my limitations are, sometimes it just takes me awhile to figure that out!

One thing I have noticed about my roses, is that there are several that seem to just get better every year, and some that lose their vigor after a time. Besides being healthy as far as mainly being blackspot resistant, I want them all to have that vigor where they get better with time, instead of declining in their vigor. I've just got to figure out which ones they are, and I know that takes time and some trial and error.

AnneCecila, I'm very sorry about your loss...

I'll chime in here... my first year with roses I had six roses, second year went to 22 and this year I'm at 47. I can't believe almost 50 roses! Maybe we should limit our number to our age number. lol All except BethNorCal!!! Only seven of mine are in the ground and the rest are in pots in anticipation of a garden redesign in the next year or so... However, having visited a beautiful Garden yesterday, I'm antsy to get more of them in the ground because I saw how much better they can do.

Sara-Ann, I would say what you're experiencing sounds normal... I've been the same way.

I dig up the ones that aren't doing well and move them to new spots. I study the roots and soil to better understand the issues. The biggest problem I've had is invasive tree roots. Removing two big maple trees has eliminated that issue--the little dogwood in the front yard doesn't bother the roses like the maples did. I think it also helps to avoid drawing invasive roots to new plantings with fertilizer. The second issue is getting just the right amount of water--mine get too much unless they are in raised beds. The third is the right soil for your rootstock--soil testing is a huge help.

When I live in S.E. FL, I had about 170 roses. Nothing overwhelming but it had started to turn into work instead of fun. When I retired and moved into the N.E. GA mountains, I made it a goal to keep the garden to around 100 bush's. A number I can take care of. It's taken me a couple of years to get everything set up but I'm done. For anything to come into the garden now, something has got to go. Which means I'm pretty much done ordering for me.

AnneCecilia, Sorry about your loss.

Jjpeace, I do all the manual labors to take care the roses, but I take a lot shortcuts, like to use Grass B Gone for the grass, don't have the time to pull them out......haven't been to the group rides on the weekends.....I have been digging holes for the piles of bargain bare root roses.....I love blooms, and need some cutting roses, with all the sales.....somehow they all landed here. Right now I planted them pretty close to each other, I jump in and out the rose beds to trim off the spent blooms, to check on midge damages.....when I am older, I won't be able to jump...... will have to think about that later. :-) I don't have the skills to open a nursery, that's a lot of work to have own business. :-)

AnneCecilia, so sorry to hear of your loss, as well. I'm glad your were at least able to move some of your original roses to have that physical reminder. I'm really interested in your knee replacement, but don't want to hijack this thread. I have a friend that REALLY "kneeds" that, but is afraid he won't have range of motion and will be in worse shape, although he's bone-on-bone at the moment. He's barely able to walk and looks at a jaunt to the garage or up stairs as a journey.

I only have about 20, many new this year and in pots still. 5 New Dawn, 2 Munstead Wood, 2 Viking Queen, 2 Summer Romance, 1 Tooth Fairy, three old polys, 2 Cecile Brunners and 2 Fire Opal and 1 Dr Huey. I need more to fill out my beds, although the polys are for two small beds. I'm still in the expansion phase, but am such a researcher, it takes me forever to decide. I envy those who just see a flower and buy it!

Really???? How about that bare spot over there in the corner??? One more won't hurt.... I wonder how many times these folks have heard 'I've reached my limit'..... lol

At most I had around 60+ roses, plus many other kinds of flowers and a large veggie garden and orchard on 2.5 acres. That all changed when I fell and broke my hip in 2009. I couldn't get around for almost 6 months and everything went to wreck and ruin. Then I started having other physical problems in 2012. I have cut back my roses to a little more than half, about 35, and just replace old ones that are not doing well with new ones. Some of my old ones are 30 years old and are not blooming like they use to bloom. I did make a new bed by the house this year for 5 David Austin roses. Like someone else said, "Know your limitations." I want gardening to be an enjoyable hobby, not work.

It's a battle we all fight I think. I quit counting a few years back. Figured it's best not to know :) I haven't QUITE reached my limit since I still have a few spots to fill but I'm determined there'll be NO NEW BEDS!! Lol! Enlargements? Can't say THAT won't happen. I love many different flowers so it's not just roses that keep me busy. But I absolutely love being out in the garden so it's more like fun most days :)

Well I don't think you are crazy, Beth...lol. I have to say 2000 roses must make quite a stunning and beautiful rose garden.

Wow summersrhythm, at least you get your daily exercise! I honestly can't imagine taking care of so many roses.

Kudos to you, ladies!

Thanks JJpeace, I hope your New Dawn is doing well this year, mine got a lot of buds!

Beth, you're the one should open a nursery! :-) You don't have to look for a new job, start rooting the roses, and give us a cheaper rate, I am sure a lot of us would find rooms for your babies! :-) Start rooting, tomorrow is a good day to start! :-)

JJpeace, you would think that that many roses would make a beautiful garden.... but with the pine trees (pine needles), weeds and overgrown underplantings and deadheads... it looks like a big mess.

Summersrhythm, my husband often tells me I should be selling roses. But my problem is, I'm not that great at rooting. I really would need a greenhouse, but my property is too sloped and has too many pine trees, so it would be hard to build one, and we can't afford that anyway. I'd love to do it one day... but that won't ever happen. I'm getting too old to do this stuff. LOL