Andreajp, these are lovely photos and a beautiful look to aspire to. It's a good idea to choose from the roses at the cemetery - pretty much an opportunity to find guaranteed winners for your garden. The photos really excited me because my front garden is finally getting mature enough that Souv de la Malmaison and Mme Lombard are looking like one bush because ML is reaching out wide. I don't mind (yet), because I've long been an admirer of the thicket look. I tried to plant 6' on center (but sometimes not) which pretty much guarantees that teas will be overlapping some, so plan accordingly and be patient with the blank spaces for a few years. Like Jeri said, fill in with annuals. One word of advise if you use Purple Coneflowers (which I recommend). They are thugs root-wise so don't plant them under or even near the canopy of the rose. Since my roses are fairly disease resistant, I don't worry about air circulation, but being able to get to the roses for maintenance is important. Give yourself room to get to each rose from the front and the back. Make an alley behind the roses if you're planting against a fence. Then squeezing in to reach the sides, if they touch at maturity, isn't too bad unless you have a bad back and can't reach awkwardly. There are definite consequences to planting too close. And remember in Zone 9 they will get big and probably even huge. If those photos were taken in the spring flush, those bushes will be a mess by the end of the season. Can't wait to hear which ones you choose. Sherry Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Yes, it is rough on the feet. My 10 yr old son complained! I don't think I would put one in a room where you might sit or lie on the floor. I've heard that it softens over time. Will be interesting to see if that happens. Right now I almost always have socks on, but once it warms up I will be barefoot most of the time. I am wondering if I will hate it then. Hope not, because I love the way it looks. At first, my powder room door would drag. But, it was not sitting totally flat due to being rolled up during shipping. Now, it's flat and the door is fine. But, I suspect if your door is real low, it might not work.

Sophannah, in the US Rose of Sharon means Hybiscus Syriacus. In the UK iT means Hypericum calycinum. A good example of why the botanical names are so important. I've never heard H syriacus called by anything other than its botanical name here. Never heard it called Rose Mallow. If anything, that name might possibly be applied to Lavatera trimestris. Btw the colour of the Hibiscus has been doctored. They're not really that blue. Glads do best if you lift the corms and dry them off to replant. They do tend to rot in out climate.

It looks reasonably Magnolia-like to me as well, but I couldn’t ID the cultivar from this distance and without flowers. Magnolias vary a fair amount in hardiness depending on cultivar. Regardless, if you are much colder than zone 6, growing in containers doesn’t work well for most plants because the roots get much colder than in the ground when the containers are so exposed to cold air on all sides, unlike roots in the ground that have more natural insulation. where are you generally and what is your USDA growing zone? Are you planning to grow plants in a container or in the ground? The NYC area is zone 7, and potted plants there should be at least hardy down to zone 5 if they are likely to survive. So it might be one of the smaller, hardier magnolias like ‘Jane’.