Hmmm, bman1920 said "purple" and "Gallica" in his original post, but I see we have wandered far afield, and so I'll add a couple more suggestions. I like the idea of purple roses too, but there are also Gallicas that start out purplish pink and then age purple-lavender-gray, and that are good. 'De la Maitre-Ecole' (the name has variations) is very good, with large fragrant blooms and a sturdy grower--it does sucker--and a favorite of mine, which might require better treatment than some, is 'Ypsilante', with big scented velvety flowers. I wish this one WOULD sucker. Actually I have met very few Gallicas I didn't like, and most of the medium- and darker-hued ones lean to purple or lavender at some stage of bloom development. Leaving Gallicas behind, a rambling rose I like, even though it's scentless, is 'Rose Marie Viaud'. This has little double blooms the shape and color of a Parma violet. I'm currently trying to figure out a place for mine where it won't die of chlorosis. Oh, and finally, two purple Mosses: 'William Lobb', very tall, vigorous and obliging, and 'Capitaine John Ingram', low-growing and Gallica-like, the flowers little velvet purple rosettes with a button eye and a smooth lavender reverse. Both fragrant, of course. Melissa

Ooh, so many good ideas that would be great in terms of color and shape. As for caladium, we have tons of elephant ears that grow happily here but they're plain green and too much like the philodendron, but I'll look into smaller colorful ones. and turks cap looks terrific. I've never heard of crotons so I'm off to look them up. I forgot to mention that I have 3 early daylilies there that seem to do okay -- they blossom, though not much. I like the novelty ideas re art or benches, but this particular area isn't a good place for sitting, and Art Will Be Stolen. (I have a neighbor who had a potted tomato plants stolen from his yard, and another had a bench lifted from his open front porch. Sometimes it's a student prank, sometimes not, but we don't leave valuables near the road. Thank you all so much for the great ideas. Now I have a list to consider. (BTW, I realized that it was my zone info that was causing the per cent marks.)

I was also going to suggest a trellis over the doors. However, you'll need a well-behaved vine that will not climb underneath the laps on your siding (don't use crossvine or ivy). Carriage style doors with hinges and handles (decorative...we have them). A tree placed as SH shows is another good landscaping idea. We have cultured stone as our foundation...I wouldn't use it on one side only. It's best used to wrap around the front and sides with it...and that gets costly, about $19 sf around here installed. May I also suggest that you paint your garage doors the same color as the body of your house instead of a trim color. That way, the doors blend with the sides of the house. Rather than a circular drive, you could put a guest parking space on this side of your parking pad. In other words, pave/cement a car width on the front side, but still lined up with the side line of your house. Then you could put up a little fence and gate to "greet" guests and direct them to the front door. We did something similar, only we have a small island of landscaping between our guest parking pad and our parking pad. Cameron

HI Sophia Glad to be helpful, and you did indeed do a great job of picking roses that have a good reputation for relatively easy care. They'll still need occasional pruning and deadheading like any rose, but the mix of Kordes and Austin and other shrub roses should work well for you. Incidentally, there's no need to move those two free roses to another area unless you prefer the look of those blooms separate from the ones you have above. I have Garden Delight near Tuscan Sun in the "modern" section of my yard (hot colors), and they make quite a combined statement together. Most of us freely mix hybrid teas, floribundas, and shrub roses together, and a more important consideration for how you place them is their growth habit. For instance, many of your Austin roses (like The Alnwick Rose, Pomponella, Princess Alexandra of Kent, and Munstead Wood) are technically also shrub roses, and they're already in the mix you planned. However, these roses grow differently and need that considered mostly in how you plant. For instance, Munstead Wood tends to be shorter even in warm climates, so it would be toward the front of the bed, while the other larger Austins could go toward the back of the bed. Beyond the height and spread of the roses, everyone's advise to not worry too much about the rose placement is right on- as jjpeace says, the roses tend to decide when they want to bloom and even carefully planned placements end up looking like a mixture in most cases, so just put them where you want them. Since you mention being new at roses, here are some other tips for planting and enjoying them: - Do what you can to prepare the soil ahead of planting in your front bed. This could be mixing in some organic material (like leaves, grass clippings, compost) into the soil bed before planting if you're ambitious, or putting layers of organic material in the 1 meter area around the roses as mulch (maybe putting some wood chips on top if you like that look) if you're lazy like me. The worms will gradually mix that organic material into the soil and improve the overall quality of the soil over time. If you have a humid climate, you want to make sure to keep that organic material away from the canes at the base of the rose at least a few centimeters, to avoid some diseases at the base. Keeping that mulch down on top of the soil also cuts down on your work because you won't have to weed around the roses. - Be sure to water them deeply when you water - particularly when first planted - (until you can feel moisture half-way up your finger, an average of 2 cm per week) but don't drown them in water. Spacing out watering helps to build up toughness and make them send down deep roots, but in sandy soil or very dry climates you have to water more often than I do with my loamy clay soil. - Be PATIENT with them. These roses will mostly settle in for this year and much of next year, and that's a good thing. You may see some blooms, but the main color you want to see is green - that means they're putting out leaves and hopefully putting out roots to grow from. You expect new roses to sleep the first year, creep the second year, then leap (start blooming more) the third year. - Don't fuss over them too much. There will be occasional bugs that chew on them, making lacy holes in the leaves or clustering on buds in early spring (like aphids), but the best defense is to spray them off with water and not try to kill them off. Keeping a few "bad" bugs encourages the good bugs to come and keep the balance in your garden (and also make less work for you). Same thing about blackspot on the leaves - unless it keeps your rose stunted and not putting out new leaves, many of us don't do anything about blackspots on the leaves. If you don't like the look and some turn out to have too spotty leaves to be acceptable to you, you can always change out that rose for another one that will stay cleaner down the road. - Don't fertilize your new roses when planting, particularly not with any solid fertilizers. I make the exception that I plant new roses with a handful of alfalfa hay (from the feed store) mixed in the planting hole soil, since it breaks down very gradually and the roses like the nitrogen, but it's not needed. You can give them some half-strength diluted liquid fertilizer every couple of weeks (see the directions on the bottle) once they're putting out leaves for you throughout the growing season, but you don't have to do even that. Good soil is more important than fertilizer, particularly in the first year. - Enjoy your roses and your family, and we would indeed love seeing what your garden looks like as you get it pulled together. This is all meant to be fun, so have fun with it and don't worry too much. Cynthia