Ingrid, your garden look so pretty. It just matter of time. Blooms everywhere and I always envy your place. Notch ear and Sammie looks adorable

That is so sweet of you to take care of them.

Your place looks so, so clean. How do you manage that ? It rain here last 3 days. Yesterday, it pours heavily all night and day. Which means more weeds for me to pull. Grrr. Today was just for few hours and it got muggy already..yike

Now, I wonder should I put the garden weed cloth or whatever it is called under the mulch. Weeds grow so so fast here.. double yikes :)

Jin

I think your garden is beautiful Ingrid! I love your sea lavender too!

Ingrid, I think this is your Blue period like Picasso had. It is so artistic and gorgeous, although spare compared to your riotous blooming periods. They each have their own beauty. I don't have blooms yet here except one blossom of Lady Banks yellow too high to photograph. It seems surprising that N Cal is blooming before your garden to me too.

Ingrid, sweet pictures of animal friends. I love the rabbits that visit our garden. They help prune some of the roses, especially in the back of the property...

The iris looks lovely next to Bishop's Castle.

I agree with Krista and love your animal friends. I also have a Bishop's Castle, thanks to you Ingrid, and can't wait to see it bloom here for the first time.

Ingrid, your photos are always lovely. I love that you raised the squirrel. My garage used to be full of orphaned possums, being raised by my daughter.

I am going to show my two remaining sea lavenders (one died, for goodness' sake!), your photos. I am going to move them when the weather cools down, to a drier place. Maybe they are just too spoilt.

Thank you, dear rose friends, for your nice comments about my rather bare patch of land, and also about my animal friends.

Jin, I've heard terrible things about weed cloth; it seems to be a real nightmare to work with. Pile on more mulch and hope for the best!

Pardon me for not writing more, I've had almost no energy lately, I keep hoping that will get better.

Just wrote a long post, went to edit it, and it got wiped, somehow...so I might not repeat quite what I said there, just in case the Universe is giving me some sort of message... But, dear Ingrid, I just wanted to let you know I'm thinking of you, as I so often do, even tho' I haven't been managing to get anything approaching emotional stuff into words for a while. (Trying to write or speak of any sort of personal difficulties has for a while been impossible, and the effort has had the unfortunate after-effect of leaving me completely wrung out like a limp rag, unable to function, and if not assiduous with the meditation practice, wobbling precariously on the edge of spiralling down into the doldrums.)

So, of course, I totally understand your exhaustion, as would others I'm sure who deal with these sorts of persistent/relapsing, disabling, 'invisible' illnesses, which are so challenging in so many hidden ways. And I'm so sorry about everything you and your dear hubby are going through, and do wish for you both all the inner strength and resilience you need to get through. And that you stay strong in your support and caring for each other - such a blessing to have that at least when times are really tough. I also wish there was some tangible help I could offer, and/or that I could reach out across the various oceans and land-masses in between and give you good, long, warm hug; but for that, a virtual one will have to suffice.

As far as having a currently somewhat less than bloomiferous (though still lovely) garden, if it's any comfort at all (which I realise it may not be), I can assure you your garden definitely looks much better than mine! Just imagine - I don't even have one rose, blooming or otherwise! Try living with That! :-0-:-[ }:-{ -}:~( =}:~()_ :-{ ...sniff, sniff.... (#5 is meant to be ugly crying, with drool coming out of corner of mouth - just in case you can't quite 'read' my makeshift emojis...)

Hugs, Comtesse ;-)

PS: No need for a lengthy (or any) answer, if you're not feeling up to it - I'll understand.

Ingrid thanks for your advice. I will not bother with cloth like barrier. I add more mulch.

Comtessa you are so sweet . Yeah, comtessa is right. You need rest and your garden is beautiful and comtessa you need to rest too. Hope all you guys are taking care of your health. Hugs to Ingrid, Comtessa and Bart.

Jin

Thank you, Jin! It is good to hear from you, Comtesse. I wish you and Ingrid the best.I would strongly advise AGAINST weed cloth!!! I tried it and it was not only a failure; it also seemed to stunt the roses. I think it winds up preventing nutrients to arrive into the soil or something. I myself have a terrible weed situation, but am trying to see them more as Melissa does-as potential organic matter that ,once pulled will improve my soil.

Things in my garden seem to be sort of behind, too. I'm not sure if it was that cold snap in February or what, but none of my wisterias are blooming; they are just leafing out, no flowers. Also the flowering cherry Amanagowa had it's blooming cut short by the sudden arrival of above-average temperatures. I've finally gotten down to pruning and am seeing a lot of die-back of older canes on the roses, but with healthy young new stuff coming in at the base,so in spite of all the good rain we were blessed with, I think that quite a few roses won't be blooming much this year,since this new growth is too young to flower. I sure hope it hardens off before the summer heat and drought hit. A lot of the roses don't have buds yet,whilst Purple Skyliner-one that I don't think of as an early bloomer-does have buds...weird.

Ingrid, I love your cute wildlife babies. We raised a baby squirrel once or I should say our cat did. Very rewarding. You live in such such a beautiful place, even when nothing is blooming. I am envious of your big boulders too. One can dig here forever and be lucky if they found any rocks!! Something wrong with a place with absolutely no rocks lol.

Comtesse, how ironic, I was halfway through my post to you and my internet service died. Must be something wrong with the alignment of the stars today. I can imagine how frustrating and tiring that had to be for you. I know your condition is much more debilitating than mine, and am grateful for your long post. Hope you have not sunk upon your couche like a dying swan. We care about you so much, and you're not forgotten even when you're not able to participate.

bart, it's been a strange spring for some of us, with delayed blooming (although the nasty rose bugs are not delayed), and I do think climatic conditions have a lot to do with it. I want you to have a beautiful garden with an explosion of roses and nary a weed to be found. At least I can't complain about the weeds; even they are discouraged by the hot and dry weather. Sometimes I wonder why we bother, especially when we're not totally up to snuff, which is much more the case with you, but then you can't tell an addict anything. I suppose there are worse things in life than to be addicted to beauty. Take care.

tiffandrew, what a charming picture with the sea lavender at your sitting spot. The second one is pretty in its own way, and at least your clover is not in your flower bed. The reblooming irises are a great success with me, with the most successful being the yellow and blue ones; the other varieties have gradually disappeared. I don't know where you're located, but for me in inland San Diego County they bloom ten months out of the year. They get the same amount of water as the roses and in my poor soil they seem to like it. Try Nola's Irises on-line, that's where I got mine.

What a beautiful garden you have, so tidy and structured compared to my casual approach. Are all your roses in containers? Whenever I put anything in a pot it develops an instant death wish.

I will offer a few less than great quality photos. These are potted roses I got from Rose Petals mid November 2017. The white one is Bermuda Trinity. I find it charming. Brittie recommended it. The next are Triomphe du Luxembourg with the big fat pink bud, and Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux that is a taller bigger plant not quite blooming yet. I don't know how these could be mixed up, since they are so different in body habitus. Now, I'll take more when Rhodologue is blooming.

I don't know how sellers mix Triomphe with Rhodologue or think they are the same. Obviously I know little about the subject, as a beginner, but I look forward to more pictures of other's plants. Clearly I'll have no idea where to put any of these plants since I don't know what they are going to do. All in all, I'm hoping this keeps my mind off other topics less uplifting and I hope we can all puzzle through these things together. My in ground roses have buds, thankfully. I'm hoping we all get to Spring eventually.

Ingrid, everything is still so beautiful! I know you’re feeling like your roses are behind, but many of my OGR’s are just starting up. That means yours can’t be behind! I love your little animals. I’m sure they are a joy to watch. I like your plan of feeding them. You’d think they’d leave your roses alone, being well fed. I guess they can’t resist the tender new growth once in a while. I’m sure they think it’s their “salad bar buffet”. Please take care of yourself and Cecil. Maybe the coming cooler temps will help. I’m hoping so.

Sheila, that bloom is luscious! There’s so many petals for a young plant. I’m sure Ingrid’s will be blooming in no time, too. Lisa

Ingrid, your colors are lovely. I especially like the photo of the sea lavender with the slightly lighter iris with its various lavender shadings. They are both beautiful individually and together they are smashing.

Cath

You may be still waiting but you'll probably beat me... I know you are very good with animals of all kinds. but I do love the squirrel especially there...

Hope all is as well as can be with everyone... lovely photos to peruse over tea...

Sheila, after seeing your fat, sumptuous bloom of TdL I could cry that they sent me RJG, of which I already have two. Just from your one picture I can see how different the habit is, and it really is frustrating. Sheila, please promise that you'll send more pictures of your TdL later. At least I can enjoy it vicariously.

Practically overnight the bunnies have reduced my bush of Bishop's Castle to a third of its size. I could cry. It's horrible of me, but I'm trying to figure out how to lure coyotes into my yard. It's one of the few Austins I have and my favorite. This is the first year it's been this bad, and I think we have fewer coyotes since the vineyard across the street took so much wild land away from them. We always seem to be the destroyers of the natural balance of nature.

I bought those because of your questions Ingrid. Clearly so far they are totally different. Doesn't RVR use both names for their plant whatever it is? I'm glad I got the one I did and hopefully RJG will be great too, but it's body is chunkier, and bigger while TdL is more delicate. I probably shouldn't have let these babies bloom yet. I hope the best for your BC. I've had a few basals sliced off on the Teas by rabbits too I think. How can they live with themselves?

Sheila, if they could talk the rabbits would probably say they were there first, and they would be so right. A while ago I cut some long rosemary branches and put them around my beleaguered rose and hopefully that will save what's left. Fortunately I have another BC which was a runt for years but which now has some nice blooms, which I had fortunately protected. It's in the sun and has blooms while the rabbit-eaten on, in a much more shady position, hasn't even had a bud. Very strange, since Duchesse de Brabant, in even more shade, has quite a few buds. I suppose each rose has its own timetable.

I have had frosts take some buds and rabbits some basals. I hope the plants are strong enough to keep trying. I thought birds were the basal slicing culprit but I think people here thought rabbits. They are adorable though.

Our roses are on schedule, with the very first warm climate roses just coming into bloom, along with what little of R. hugonis was spared by the drought and cane girdler. Our wisteria has also bloomed normally. We lost the entire flowering of one of our two Ceanothus thyrsiflorus repens, a big plant (the other is in bloom now, late), and the large double white Lady Banks on its pergola also got well frozen and looks like it won't be blooming this year at all, though the older hardened growth is green. The double yellow L.B. in the trees has some flowers.

Last year's drought and this winter's late freeze did things, though I'm not always sure what. I've seen no sign of box moth this year, and think it should have shown up by now: I know that last year I was spraying for it in March or early April. I have my fingers crossed! Also it appears that the porcupine that ravaged the garden for a year may be gone....I'm not sure...but I devoutly hope that it couldn't take that week of hard frost and snow and headed south to warmer climes.

All in all, for such a hard year as 2017 was, the garden looks tolerably well. We've had unseasonably warm and dry weather the last two or three weeks, and heaven knows I hate stable high pressure systems, but am hoping spring will return for a while yet. The plants are full of sap and the first roses are just coming into flower.

Ingrid, I jumped into your post to answer bart's description of what's going on in her Italian garden: I hope you don't mind my hijack. I hope you get some blooms soon, and some springlike weather! Winter was long, long, long here. We all need that sense of returning life, and the joy and delicacy of roses.

Melissa, please jump in any time; I loved hearing about your garden. It's never perfect, is it, always some not so good and some very good. I suppose it's to keep us humble, and it seems to work. The few failures make the successes all the sweeter.

Here is my Triomphe bud still heading to the finish. Same bud as above.