There were roses everywhere when we bought this house, and we have been removing them one by one and giving them to friends. One friend lives on a street called Rose Circle, or something like that, and she has been good about taking the unwanted roses off our hands. I have been replacing the roses with drought tolerant plants, such as succulents and cacti, which I much prefer. Still, some roses still come back from roots that we were unable to remove, and so it is an ongoing process to get rid of them. We have kept one rose bush in the front yard that makes white flowers, and it seems to bloom all year, which is why we kept it. Also, the white flowers go better with our color schemes than the pink ones. We are trying to get rid of the pink that we inherited with the house. The first thing to go was an ornamental peach tree that attracted possums. We have replaced that with banana and heliconia - not drought tolerant plants, but they work with our existing watering system. I have a hard time throwing out orchid cuttings, but we have too many epidendrum in the back yard and no place to put all of them. I also have a bit of a hard time throwing out bromeliad cuttings, but I have no trouble at all throwing out roses, as the thorns are quite nasty. Some of the bromeliads are nasty also, and so I do not feel bad about throwing those out. If it pricks you, do not feel bad about throwing it out is my philosophy. It's nice when you can find homes for unwanted plants, but it is not nice to keep something that is getting in your way.

Yes, she has that DA look to her, just a tad too bright for me. I cannot find fault with her performance, and believe me, I have tested her. I had 50feet of Texas Privet hedge dug out a week or two ago, and had all my roses lined up in position for planting. The nice man knew I was ill, and while I was lying down in my room, he actually planted my roses for me! It was so sweet of him. Between my not wanting to seem ungrateful, and the language problem, I did not ask how Louise Clements came to be included in my new rose bed. That rose just won't go away! I don't even know how he found it. I had it clear on the other side of the house in a pot. I know it's "just a plant", but after all it's been through I kind of feel like it deserves a home. Silly me:) Lisa

Those look great GAgal! Sheila, I love your scenic pic of Crep!. We're still on roller coaster weather...was 80 last weekend, but supposed to have lows in the mid 30's this weekend. No hard freeze yet, but lots of stuff in the garden looking tired and ragged these days (including me...lol). Here are a couple of pics of the Mrs R M Finch I received from ARFR earlier this year. I wasn't familiar with the rose, and their website pic didn't really entice me, but my dad's initials were RMF. He's been gone for several years now, and mom still misses him terribly. So thought I would get the rose to grow for mom to enjoy as Mrs RMF (I left off the "inch" in Finch when telling her its name and take her little bouquets of blooms from it often). It has rarely taken a break from blooming since I got it. Here it is in August...2 months after receiving it (summer blooms turn from pink to white quickly): And here is a partial shot I took Monday morning before work (blooms hold their pink for a good while in cool weather):

Perma: Yes, an antique rose is much more than just a rose. It's history, it's romance, it's beauty, it's fragrance, it's science, it's life, it's culture, it's poetry, it's magic. It's a reason to get out of bed in the morning--to look around excitedly to see what bloomed. Like you this is basically my only indulgence. I've been frugal by necessity for decades. This is really the only thing I've done for myself and I don't feel guilty for spending the money. What's stopping me now is I have no sunny space left to put them and I am really pushing it on shade tolerance with many of them already. Ingrid: I agree. I think the future will be worse than those forecasts. Jin: Yes, with money just about anything in the garden is possible. I could spend thousands easily in the garden. Every year! I want to fix my paths and get some flowering plants that are shade tolerant. Maybe a bunch of encore azaleas for starters. I'm eventually going to have to shift my focus to shade gardening because for every square foot of sun I have about 200 square feet in shade. I really wish I could get as worked up over shade plants as I am for antique roses. As an aside, my crape myrtles are all blooming now and they are really beautiful but they do not make my heart go pitter patter like my roses do.