I'm so happy for you, Marianne, it sounds like a perfect day for everyone, and even the weather behaved. That's a lot of roses in bloom; it must have looked wonderful. You'll have to post your daughter's pictures of the garden here when she returns. I hope your beautiful garden inspired some of your visitors to think about roses for their own gardens, especially the old roses.

Yes, please do post pictures - would love to see them.

Jackie

You had mentioned that you were going to participate, and I'm glad it turned out so well. And how nice to be able to mentor some younger gardeners; that probably really meant a lot to them.

I'm a little surprised you thought other gardeners wouldn't be interested, but perhaps you underestimated the appeal of your rose garden. Sometimes we need to see things through the eyes of others to appreciate them.

I always enjoy seeing the photos of your garden that you post, so I hope you will post a few of your daughter's photos when you can.

Virginia

I'm glad you had such a success, and so much pleasure. I agree about gardeners!

I would have been thrilled to have been there. That's so nice that it was enjoyable, and I also would love to see photos.

What a lovely thing to do! I'm glad it went so well. I also would love to see the pictures when your daughter gets back.

What a lovely thing for a country to do, and for your husband's gentle nudge. I'm also looking forward to pictures.

Me too! Me too! Lisa

So happy you had a lovely day and what a generous thing for you and your husband to do. Never been to a private rose garden but I know the public rose gardens around here have inspired me and it is so good to see what roses grow well nearby.

It was our first open day because of this national event but I had a long list of open local gardens today. They are mostly advertised for garden society members and not advertised to the general public like the one we took part in.

Please post some pics. I would love to see what swedish rose gardens look like. I have no idea how cold Sweden is but it should be since it is part of northern europe. Please share with us what the challenges and success are growing roses over there.

Mariannese, what a wonderful event for a country to sponsor! I wish we had something like that here. Gardeners certainly are wonderful people. Was there ever any doubt? You mention that it was a nice day and there were over 100 roses in bloom. You know that we will want to see pictures!

Not only are rose gardeners nice but nosy too...lol. We want to see other people roses as well as our own.

Okay, I show some of my latest photos from the garden, but I'm a poor photographer and especially white roses become white blobs!

Another photo I just took from the upstairs balcony of what we call our middle garden. It's raining so it's a bit dull. But the rain is welcome as you can see from the brown lawn.

I have never been to Sweden but have always wanted to spend some time there. You have a beautiful lawn! Now I want to go so much more. I am a car guy and a rose fanatic. I met a Swedish couple a few years back in Scotland. I introduced myself to the man because he was wearing a shirt with a Mustang on the front. In fact I owned one just like on his shirt. After talking a while with them I found out that Swedish men are into American muscle cars.

I was planning a trip from northern Norway down via a series of ferries and mountain roads through the fjords. Now I may plan a different trip. Dad drives a Volvo S80, which was made right there in Sweden. It is a great car and a great value.

Do you have any suggestions for travel in Sweden which would be good for a guy like me?

Oh my gosh, Marianne, your visitors must have been enchanted. You have a garden heaven there. I've always admired your garden greatly, but it's even better now because I see that many of the roses have grown larger and more beautiful. I love the natural, relaxed style, almost a wilderness of roses in places, held in check by the mowed paths. You and your husband have done a wonderful job of developing this garden into something so very special. Thank you for taking these pictures while we're waiting for the rest. You are NOT a poor photographer, far from it.

I agree with Ingrid. Your pictures are just fine. I've been coming back to your post, periodically checking for photos. I'm delighted to see your garden. The mowed grass paths are wonderful. We don't see that done much around here. I especially like the way you have combined the elements of a structured "English style" garden with the more natural looking "forest" of trees, shrubs, and roses. They go together seamlessly in your garden. Not an easy feat, IMO. You have really created something really special. No wonder the newbies stayed to ask questions! Just beautiful Marianne. Lisa

Thank you all and my husband chimes in too! You're too kind but like I said, gardeners are kind people.

Mustang Guy, perhaps you would enjoy the Big Power Meet next year, this year's meet is going on just now: http://bigmeet.com/eng/ It is a spectacular event.

Mariannese, your garden is beautiful, they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Mustang Guy, I have just had a look at the link Mariannese placed above, you will be over the moon if you get there.

The garden furniture in the last photo looks so very inviting; how nice to have such a beautiful view...

Very nice scenes from the garden- thanks!

Virginia

An enchanting garden. I only wonder how you thought people wouldn't be interested. I love that grass path through the roses, and the box circle. And echoing what others have said, how fortunate for the new gardeners to see your garden and have your input.

Trish

20,000 cars! Holy cow. Over here, 5,000 cars is considered a big show. As a matter of fact, one of the biggest car shows is happening now in Columbus, OH less than 2 hours from me. https://www.good-guys.com/ggn-2016 

Should I try to learn a lot of Swedish, or would the basics do?

Mustang, sign language is used everywhere, you will be ok.

How wonderful! Glad you did this, and glad you had so much fun doing it.

So much to see and such lovely plant groupings! Your garden must be like paradise in June although I'm sure that you and your husband have worked hard to get it to look like it does. Thank you for sharing it with us.

You should go and visit the Columbus Park of Roses and Eathkind Park at the same time.

Mustangguy, there's no need to learn a word of Swedish. English used to be taught in school from the age of 11 (even earlier now) so most Swedes under the age of 75 will know at least some English even if they didn't go to school very long. When my Wisconsin cousins visited me they were surprised to find that bus drivers spoke good English. Young people will be very good at it at least superficially. Members of the American Car Club, organizers of the meet probably know the English term for every little spare part of their cars because much has to be imported from the US.

Trish, my garden has very little of interest beside roses and I am aware of the declining interest in roses over here. A visitor last year asked me what there was to see after the roses were over (many flower only once) and I had to confess that there is not very much. We are trying to amend this and have added more shrubs and trees with fall colors, ornamental grasses and late perennials. I don't mean that we are doing this for visitors, we made our garden for our own enjoyment but it will be nice to have some more variety.

Wow, your garden's so beautifu! What a wonderful place to stroll thru the garden. Love it. Where did your garden design come from?

The design has evolved during the 22 years we've spent in this garden. We first took over some features already here. We kept the small kitchen garden in the same place because the soil was much improved from the natural clay. We made the abandoned and weedy strawberry and raspberry patch into a large island bed for roses and perennials. I copied the design from a book by Barbara Damrosch, an American landscape designer. I couldn't use the same plants though. I used yew for the backing curved hedge instead of junipers. I write "I" because it took a few years for my husband to become a full partner. He used to do all the digging but left the decisions to me. That has changed and DH is full of ideas.

There is a large boulder to the west and we had to work around it. I found a design by another American landscape designer, Lanning Roper who lived and worked in England. He had a design for double curved borders that suited the site perfectly.

The round boxedged rose bed was made in homage to my husband's maternal grandmother who was a gardening teacher, trained in Berlin in 1910. She was born in Scania, the southernmost part of Sweden where box and yew are traditional elements in farmhouse and castle gardens. They are not common elsewhere. This part of the country is quite different from the rest of Sweden, more like the Continent. It belonged to Denmark until 1658. I took this photo of Vittskövle Castle in 2010. It was built in 1477, the largest renaissance castle in Sweden with 100 rooms and to my eyes it looks very Danish or German, both the house and the garden.

One of our neighbors built a wall and we had to adapt to that. The rest of our garden design just happened.

What a lovely, enchanting garden you have! I think it's very organic the way it has evolved. It has elements of English gardens I have seen, but more informal in areas which gives it a very homey feel. What a great idea of opening private gardens also.

My daughter came back from her vacation and sent me some of her photos from the Open Garden day. This was privately organized from a gardening site run by a famous garden journalist, not official but several voluntary organizations helped. They did the advertising, sent out information material, gave us postcards to invite the neighbors and pennants to put outside the garden. Some of the visitors: