Ben, I am always mesmerized by your garden photos. You have some of the healthiest, most robust roses I've seen here. And I love your taste in vibrant colored roses! That photo of Chicago Peace - it just doesn't get better than that!

I was surprised to see very few monarchs in my garden this year. Last year was packed with them, but this year was very quiet. I'm glad they were somewhere!!!

Thank you for sharing these - they are a delight.

Ben... your R and B recommendations have sold me on it... thanks so much...

I hope I can find that salvia here in Italy. Salvia does extrememly well in my garden, but the varieties I have (grown from seed and don't remember names) are disappointing: gangly and not very showy.

BenT- Thanks for sharing your lovely garden with us! Your roses are doing so well, I especially love Rosie the Riveter and your Peace roses. How's Rosie's fragrance?

Can you share a photo of Lavender Crush? Mine hasn't grown or flowered much. Hopefully it will take off next year.

Your monarch butterflies are great too! I'm always happy to see them in my yard. I know hums are very territorial. When I've offered containers of sugar and water, there's always one hum that takes over and shoos all the other hums away. They also let you get fairly close to you which is a bit unusual for birds.

Great job with the roses!

Ann

Karen,

I’m visiting my mom in Stockton this Thanksgiving, and based on your discovery, we’re both excited to be visiting the Port Stockton Nursery. She shares my love for gardening, so thank you for the tip.

Malorena

I’m sure Rhythm and Blues will be stunning alongside all your incomparable Austins.

Two of my favorite ‘new for me’ varieties this year, they have everything I most want out of a rose: Unique colors, long lasting blooms, excellent all season production, and consistent, strong and unique fragrance.

Tahitian Sunset: Colors vary greatly on this one , but the young flower is usually sunset tones, the mature bloom apricot, tinged pink. It has a strong unique fragrance of anise, jasmine and old rose, and blooms very generously

Acapella. Shocking deep pink with a white reverse, a strong fruity fragrance of bananas and lychees (a very unexpected scent for such a modern form and colors). Bloomed well all season and made excellent progress starting from a 1 gal pot this spring.

Gosh, Houzz is being so kind today, letting me post so many pics. Better post more while I still can.

Just Joey showing a giant 6” blooms in her best fall color

Mellow Yellow, a unique bright yet cool yellow that plays well with all her neighbors. It blooms like crazy and holds its color well, too.

That's some mighty fine rose growing. All the rain seems to have done them good. Thanks for sharing.

Your garden is gorgeous, Ben! Thanks for sharing all the beautiful blooms and photos.

Ben, I always love seeing your garden. Your roses are vivibrant and healthy . I guess the shovel sitting in the garden served as a visual reminder that any one can be replaced .

I added 10 new salvia this year and one of them is Rhythm and .Blues. I Iove the combination of purple and orange and you have just the right colors to make your yard pop.

Your Chicago Peace is stunning!

My Soul Sister is new so I am looking forward to next year.

Thanks for the inspiration Ben

Thanks for all the nice words, Kristine, Seil, Nosemeter and Ann.

Kristine,

Excited that you’ll be trying Rhythm and Blues. I bought mine at Flowers by the Sea, did you get yours there too, or was it available locally?

Ann,

I’ve since posted some pics of Tahitian Sunset, a rose I was inspired to get from your beautiful collage.

Rosie has a slight to moderate, spicy fragrance. I think in that color range (pink/orange/yellow/copper multicolor), Granada is the easy winner on fragrance, and a super bloomer as well.

Lavender Crush is planted in the very back of a rosebed behind some big HTs, so I never have a whole plant pic of her. But here’s a part of her:

And here she is in a vase with Jude and Grande Dame, her scent is fabulous:

And here is another part of the plant busy producing big basals, as you can see she has no use for the wimpy trellis I built for her, she intends to take over the house.

BenT

Actually I was waiting for your Fall pics . Wow , they are beautiful . Great companion plants with the roses . Your garden looks very healthy with all those butterflies & pet hummingbird .

How do you shape your roses ? do you keep cutting them back for a fuller bush ?

I love the color of Acapella , where did get it ?

At long last, thank goodness, somebody has posted some beutiful roses etc.

It has been an absolute famine for a lurker. Thank you thank you.

Thanks pink rose! I prune mine roses down to 18-24” in spring I find with such a long growing season they have no problem growing to big bushes.

Acapella is only available from Heirloom Roses so far as I know. It was expensive little thing but I’m glad I got her. Form color, fragrance, repeat are all top notch. Here’s pic of her from spring a few months after planting from a 1 gallon pot, she wasted no time getting established and blooming, I like her so much I moved her from the pot ghetto to the front yard.

Ben your garden is spectacular!!! You know, I think it's possible those roses knew you were eying them for termination because I have read that plants can send out chemical messages to nearby plants to warn them when they are being eaten by something so that the neighboring plants can produce chemicals which make them distasteful etc.. So your roses probably did sense your displeasure and put out more blooms!!

Ben, your whole garden is such a paradise! What a lovely place you have created! I love the color combinations and vibrancy of it all, and clearly that hummingbird is appreciative, despite his aggressive pushing!

Ben, your beautiful and beautifully tended garden is such a welcome change from my arid landscape. I particularly like Moonstone and your Bolivian verbena, the latter so much prettier than the verbena I see here in local nurseries. Heirloom is stunning, a rose that hated it here, even planted in afternoon shade. Frequent rain makes such a difference. Lavender Crush is new to me but I love it, and it looks so pretty in your bouquet, as does Jude the Obscure. Grande Dame is not my friend because it was a total failure in my garden. Your picture of Just Joey is as beautiful as a painting. Your front garden must stop traffic.

Your garden is perfection! I'm particularly smitten by Lavender Crush as I've been debating between her and Quicksilver to go with Violet's Pride. You have a knack for combining different plants and colour palettes!

O, Vaporvac,you caption my pain, lol! How I lust after just THOSE three roses; well, not Violet's Pride so much, but Quicksilver and Lavender Crush...if only they were available here in Europe. Maybe if I say it/write it often enough it will become so . as the great Nick Cave puts it. "I knew I'd find you,'cause I longed you here..." (what a poet!!!)

Ben, is that a picture of Granada ? It is gorgeous what ever it is

Stunning, Ben! I want to replace all my salvia with R&B.

Ben, your fall garden is amazing! Thanks for sharing the photos.

And, thank you for the salvia recommendation - some of the salvias do well in my climate, so I'll check it out.

Thank you for posting such beautiful photos! A real treat to see such wondrfully healthy, blooming roses! You have a gorgeous yard, thanks for sharing!

Judith

Thank you Ben for all the wonderful pictures and descriptions! I am so happy you have Monarchs! Yes a zinnia is not really very regal or sophisticated looking but the Monarchs prefer them over a lot of other flowers for nectar. I'm planting more this coming year. Of course for reproduction they need some sort of milkweed to lay their eggs on as the emerging caterpillars will only eat milkweed.

I want that new R & B salvia! I planted a newer agastache this year that the bees love but the hummers never went near it. I also found out later that this one is only hardy to z7 so I tried to harvest some seeds. Don't know whether it will seed or not. The cuttings did not take.

I have Lavender Crush new this year. It got spot diseases and defoliated up to the tips constantly. It didn't grow hardly at all after that but produced three small flowers. It's been sitting pretty much stagnate all fall but no further disease. I'll have to wait and see what happens over winter before I make a judgement.

Ingrida,

Thanks for coming out of lurkdom to say such nice words. I have to say if we didn’t have so many posting issues on Houzz, many of our fellow gardeners would be posting beautiful pics.

Pippa

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could bottle those ‘bloom profusely or die’ chemical signals? I’d douse it all over Golden Celebration, which right now is a thousand stems and no blooms.

TiffandDrew and Ingrid,

I admire your beautiful SoCal gardens too. I visit there about once a year, I love the sunny days , cool nights, no mosquitos...perfect for both the rose and its caretaker! But I do understand that water is especially precious there.

Vaporvac,

I wish I can take credit for the colors looking the way they do, but mostly the companion plants flourish where they want, and nature does her own color palette in my yard.

Bart,

I know how frustrating it is not to be able to get the varieties you want, I hope some local distributor pics up Lavender Crush and Quicksiliver for you.

Kristine,

the pics of the 3 multicolor HTs are indeed Granada, one of my absolute favorites of all roses. It’s my favorite colors, blooms a ton and smells great, though probably needs spray.

Totoro, lkayet, cyndita,

I hope you do try the Rhythm and Blues salvia, it’s been a big winner in my garden...best of all it makes babies that look and grow just like the parent! I have no idea where the kids come from , there are no runners or seed pods, but I’ll be rummaging the flower bed and come across a deep blue spike of flowers on a young plant...a perfect gift for neighbors who admire the mother plant.

Judith,

Isn’t fall in Texas finally wonderful? Sunny days, cool nights, we had so much rain and now every plant is happy.

Ben, Granada is a rose that I could get in to. How tall does yours get ?

The color is phenomenal, and next to a purple salvia, devine.

Sam McGredy one wrote of Fragrant Cloud, ’give her an ounce of sunshine and she glows’. One of my very favorite roses, I plant in front near the sidewalk so passerby can get a whiff of her powerful scent.

LoveSong, stellar performance, has only been in the ground five months and loaded with 5” blooms.

Frida Kahlo, she unfortunately losers her stripes in summer, but they’re back for fall:

A couple of different looks for Lavender Crush, she tends to start out pale and deepen as the flower ages.

Kristine,

Granada gets to be about 5x5 for me. I’m sure she’d take well to pruning, but she is always setting new buds so I hate to lose those and just let her do her thing during the year.

5 is good,

Wow Ben your garden is impressive =). I love all your roses and your companion plants. I have made a note so I can look for that new salvia around here next year. The hummingbird is cutest thing. I am particularly impressed with your Heirloom, Lavender crush and lovesong roses. Could you tell me a bit more regarding health and rebloom? I saw Freida Kahlo at a local place this year and it didn’t look as nice as yours. The stripes are gorgeous. Fragrant Cloud looks fabulous also. In short, your garden is incredibly beautiful.

Wow. These are amazing. My roses are also in bloom niw that the harsh summer is over. I love the Bolivian verbena. I grow it from seed and she’s a great companion for my roses. they also make a good cut flower.

One last Beverly bloom even though she is loaded with buds and mildew by the way. Darn her anyway

She has dozens of new canes and has taken over way more than her allotted space.

One of 3 new Greggii salvia, non stop blooms.

Olivia is still blooming

And Bolero still blooming

Dianela,

Thanks for the kind words, we are both lucky to have a lovely Southern fall.

Love Song, Lavender Crush, and Heirloom all have great flower power, they bloom heavily and repeat well. I can’t comment on disease resistance because I do spray and every plant is healthy...my summers resemble a hot steam room, I’m afraid without spray my only choice would be whether I wanted my Knock Out to be Pink or Red :/

Heirloom is a survivor! I found her at the plant dumpster at Lowes and the manager let me have her for ONE dollar, lol. She has never stopped thanking me for being rescued, she perked right up in a month or so:

Here she is after one year:

Lavender Crush was an odd find too. Home Depot had a whole pallet of them perfectly grown, mislabeled as Angel Face! You could smell their heavy perfume as soon as you saw them, she was a beautiful baby

I might have bought the whole pallet if I had the space. She’s the rose in my avatar, and the only rose that can turn a dark royal purple in my climate.

SoFl Rose,

I’m very impressed that you grew Bolivian Verbena from seed! The instructions I followed were very complicated, requiring periods of refrigeration, light, darkness, dry, wet, prayers to the flower gods and sacred hymns by scented candlelight, and I never got a sprout. Mine ultimately came from Ebay as small plants...I found it impossible to simulate a perfect spring in Bolivia, lol. Great to know it makes a good cut flower!

Kristine,

Beautiful roses and sage! I’ve always wanted to try Olivia from your pics. Beverly and Bolero are great for me too, very carefree and always nicely scented. Many of my Kordes were not so good, but Bev is a winner

. I remember about us both complaining how giant and stingy Savannah gets. I saw the humongous 12ft x 10ft bloomless monster at my local arboretum...

...sure enough, it was SAVANNAH! (Just by its gargantuan size , weed-like health, and lack of blooms I guessed it from a distance!).

Bolero takes a pearlescent blush in cool weather:

Ben, that's pretty funny about the big giant flowerless Savannah. I pulled mine out this summer and then I saw a picture of it in the Spring and it looks so beautiful with lots of flowers I had to just keep turning the page knowing that it never really looked like that for long.

I guess I not much of a Kordes fan anymore. I do like my Fiji but all fall she has turned her back on me

All of her blooms are turned to the fence, weird

I still like Out of Rosenheim ( I think that is Kordes) and Earth Angel.

If I find that I can't grow roses anymore it will be all salvia all day , everywhere

Oh and Bolero, great rose

I am anxious to compare bolero to Desdemona.

Kristine,

When I saw monster Savannah, I immediately thought I must get a pic for Kristine for laughs! Good thing you shovel pruned early, this thing would have required a chainsaw and a tractor!

A few more companion plants

This is Hot Lips Sage.

It looks best in spring and fall here.

In my Mom’s milder 9B climate, it blooms 365 days a year

This Samba Portulaca, I have it draping down all my rose beds. It’s much bigger in plant and bloom than the common type, this plant is about 3 ft wide

It comes in a lighter pink on pink bicolor, too:

Chris Evert has a unique tangerine color:

A couple of huge Dolly Partons

Haha about the Dolly Partons!

BenT, what a feast for the eyes. I want to wander down your rose-bordered grassy paths. That is a look I love. Trish

Ben, I love your stone beds! Very beautiful! Just had alot of work done on my place this year, built my dream garden cottage and had my contractor do alot of stone beds - SO much better than my amateurish stacking of stones! I have not been able to put more dirt in due to all the rain - my big pile of rotted horse compost and mixed mulch/topsoil is not accessible right now - but getting more rock put on path so I can get dump trailer out there as soon as it dries. I have some of that hot pink portulaca and just love it! Zinnias have been wonderful this year and attrach gorgeous butterflies. Have you tried "Rebel Child" salvia? It was found or developed by Greg Grant, of Texas plant fame - he now works in Tyler - do you know of him? This salvia is very upright, doesnt flop, and is a beautiful color of blue. Your beds are just gorgeous - I hope you will continue to post photos!! Been to Chamblees lately? I hope to go this weekend - going to see grandsons in Greenville, coming home on Sat. and plan to stop by. Also hoping David Austin will have their catalog out soon so I can pick one up in Tyler. Again......lovely, lovely beds!!

Judith

Trish,

Lol, Dolly Parton does seem to bloom two bodacious blooms at a time.

Judith,

I would love to see pics of your cottage, raised beds and landscaping...it all sounds wonderful. I was very happy with the way my beds turn out, they are much easier to care for, plus I don’t have to deal with amending my heavy clay. I put cardboard on top of the grass, then filled mine with purchased soil from a dump truck. This was one of the stone beds in the spring when back when the roses coordinated their blooms

That Rebel Child salvia sounds great...bright blue is something I always look for since it’s a color that roses don’t produce so it mixes well with every rose. It’s been a while since I’ve grow farinaceas , but they do very well here. Another blue companion I really like is Thumbergia Battescombi

Last time I went to Chamblee’s they were closed on a Saturday (their website does state they are open Saturdays now). But I got a few very nice plants from Certified. You’ll have to tell us what you get (Or even better, post pics)!

Barbara

Look forward to your pics!

Great roses, Ben! I’m so impressed by all your gorgeous blooms! I’m envious of the rain you received, as well. I have the Thumbergia thanks to you. It hasn’t bloomed yet, because I was slow to plant it. Fabulous photos! Lisa

so many blooms! Soul Sister and Lavender crush are my favorite

What a lovely garden! What do you feed your roses? Do you spray? They look so clean and beautiful......and no weeds!?!

I'm so glad I stopped by again, Ben, so many more wonderful pictures! I particularly like the somewhat sideways views of your stone-enclosed beds, really gorgeous! I'm also sighing over Olivia and Bolero, both of which would go so well in my garden. Wouldn't it be glorious to have perfect planting spots for all the roses we long for, and with no squirrels or rabbits to eat everything!

What a gorgeous garden Ben ! I’m so sorry I missed this , and so happy to see it now even late. Your roses are so vibrant and lovely !! I’m so glad you posted all these photos . I need to add more salvias. I have 3-4 hummers that come for my honeysuckles . The most delightful little birds even if one is a huge bully and spends his day fretting about the others. Great pics and so nice to see !!

Ben, you have a lovely garden, everything looks very healthy. I had already admired your earlier posts, so glad you shared all the beautiful pictures, your garden is an inspiration!