I have it on my list of things to attend. I was at last week's presentation with Doug Tallamy, which was very interesting. I think these are presentations they are offering free to the public as part of the Canada 150 or Ontario 150 funding, so nice to take advantage of it.

I'll just add that it doesn't seem off topic to me; I wish it were in my area! I think we often discuss the woody plants that fit well into perennial gardens, with roses and hydrangeas being the most common, but also other smaller flowering woody plants such as Fothergilla, rhodies, etc.

Did you enjoy the talk? come away with a list of great roses for cold zones? like their selection of perennials?

Babs - Unfortunately, the talk didn't cover any details re what specific perennials will be used.... There was more details re the roses under consideration and the guy (Peter Kukielski) who was the expert rose consultant for the planned renovation had a book on sale about hardy, disease resistant roses. (I didn't buy it....) Apparently he lives and gardens in Maine.

We didn't stay for the Q&A session after the presentation so I'm not sure what was discussed then.

Here is what is currently on the RBG site re the renovation....

it would be great if you could reort back if you get to know their selection of companion plants and all sorts of details

For years I try to talk gardeners and garden owners out of Roses and LAvenders...

ok, it`s kind a classic and pleasing to the eye, but from a Lavander`s point ov view rather wrong as it "wants" such different conditions.

but with the frost and all, they probably have to use really frost hardy perennials?

another tricky thing IMO is how to actually combine perennials and roses, do you plant tame Geraniums around their feet (tried that with tea hybrids, kinda works)

but what about Polyanthas, bedding roses, would you rather mulch them... because weeding underneath them is so troublesome

so I mean, dou you interweave and mix perennials and roses or plant large, adjacent groups of each?

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genereally I think it is great that they set up a modern no-spray (?) Rose garden as example, there are hardy, resiliant cultivars, and every bit of garden chemicals not used and sprayed around is a good thing.

especially with low knowledge garden owners who spray randomly and with funny dosage (my DMIL: oh, couldn`t find my glasses, so I just mixed that stuff anyway, so.. you really think that`s why the new foliage is burnt/curly...)

I do plant roses with perennials all the time - in fact, I find traditional, mulched rose gardens to be something of an anathema. It is not any sort of tidy gardening though, especially since I tend towards rather ramping wildlings which are bundled together with a random assortment of hardy annuals and robust perennials such as foxgloves, nepeta, hesperis, hardy geraniums, siberian iris, borage, iberis, poppies, paeonies, geums and hemerocallis. I don't spray and tend to avoid frilly hybrid teas, David Austin roses, the larger gallicas in favout of burnet roses, singles such as Mrs Oakley Fisher and Dainty Bess, hybrid musks and, my current favourites, Louis Lens roses with Ballerina et al in the lineage. I also grow many species roses (californica, hulthemias, arvensis, moyesii, acicularis, villosa, alba, moschata and so forth. For the entire month of June, it is a glorious hotch-potch of fragrance and colour...while the rest of the time, we scrabble about in a viciously thorny jungle.