Hopefully, someone can chime in from your actual location to help you out. Maybe you could contact someone from your local rose society to answer questions for you. Take what I tell you with a grain of salt.... but I think it really depends on where you are located and what roses you are planting. For instance, David Austin recommends planting some of his roses very close together in 3's.... He does this for looks, however, here in Florida where it is very humid, it did not work.... and neither does the "cottage" style of planting with other flowers. We need lots of air circulation. I was told by a rosarian it depends on the humidity and the actual rose. So if you picked very healthy roses that do not get a lot of disease and if you are in a drier climate, you might be able to plant closer....

I love the pictures that you have shared.

Didn’t realize my location wasn‘t part of my name anymore .... it’s been so long since I‘ve posted (I think back before Garden Web merged with hours). So I’m in zone 7 / Maryland. Definitely a high humidity area. With that thought in mind - I think this Belmont college is in Nashville TN, which would present a similar humidity situation there Good thought, nevertheless! Thanks for your input.

What if you call or email this Belmont College outfit and ask them if there is anything particular that they have for a criteria for what roses they choose? They may have a particular breeder they like, or a specialized spray program, or an experimental fertilizer or something. But it never hurts to ask and if that is your inspiration why not go to the source? I bet they would love to talk to someone who admires what they are doing.

I already lost a giant post I wrote. Sorry this site is crazy sometimes. Growing roses this close can be done. If you chose very disease resistant varieties it would be a LOT easier. Otherwise you need to spray every other week or so and prune hard late winter and mid summer. If you study the varieties you want to grow for mature size in your area then you can find a good spacing for the ”all touching look” without so much pruning.

Planting close together is what I do. My zone is high humidity and high blackspot so I need to spray every other week most of my Austins. I also planted them 2 to 5 feet apart. The Austins get huge in my area so those at 2 feet required pruning winter and mid summer. With some good research you can get the look you want and if you choose healthy varieties for your area the maintenance would be less. I’ll just add a bunch of pictures of my crammed together garden and I’ll be happy to share into info that may help

you. All zone 7 are not the same so my advice may not actually be the best regarding size but disease pressure may be similar.

Diane, your pictures are gorgeous, stunning, and every other superlative I can think of. I hate to admit it but after admiring your pictures I just thought to myself, why am I even bothering.

Yes, Dianela and Diane are very inspirational. Do you have the Lauren Springer books, mmmm12? They are so good.

mmmm12 Thank you very much for such kind comments. My garden does not look great all the time, which is why you mostly see spring pictures. Rose books like Sheila mentioned are great help. I also just look around here on the forum and copy the roses of those with similar disease pressure. Getting ideas from those who have done it and learning from them is what makes this place special.

Sheila thank you! Your garden, Diane’s, Vaporvac,Helen’s, Sultry, Lilyfinch, SaraAnn, Summers, Flowers, BenT and many many others here have been my inspiration. I have made many mistakes including planting too close, but I have learned a lot. I know the learning will never end.

Belmont University is in Nashville, TN, zone 6b to 7a. Wide beds with roses planted on 2' centers with correct spring pruning will just about touch each other by August 1. The varieties chosen should be black spot proof/resistant because air circulation in a wide bed is not the best. Rose heights can be taller varieties in the center of an island bed or at the back of a front/back bed. Shorter roses go at the front.

If you choose all ADR winning roses, you have built in success, IMHO.

I would choose large flowered bushes since small blooms will look even smaller if viewed from a distance.

If you Keep the narrowest dimension of the bed at no more than 8', and it is an island bed, you can work it from both sides without having to walk into the bed too much.

A front/back bed against a fence could be 8' wide also. You can work the bed's back from the other side of the fence.

A front back bed against a wall presents care issues. You will have to walk into such a bed of it is much wider than 5 '. Rose thorns will be your constant bane.

Wide beds are my favorite rose setting. My one and only rose bed is 8' wide, with the back against a 4' fence with climbers on it. It's a sea of roses, but needs regular spraying since I still grow some some black spot magnet bushes in black spot "ground zero," here in Pittsburgh.

Moses

Sheila, I had not heard of Lauren Springer but did a google search on her. She is in CO and the books look intriguing. Thanks for the suggestion. I am actually loving our garden/yard this year. It is just that the roses play almosts no part in that. They are off in their own little area due to not really playing nice in Colorado. I initially tried to incorporate a few more in the landscape design but they weren't pulling their weight so got relegated to a cutting bed. After I posted the above comment I went out and viewed the bed. Was thrilled to see Winnipeg parks having a flush and Golden Wings with one bloom. I figured I have to take what I can get in Colorado and I was happy again with that.

dinanela7bnorthal

I just LOVE your garden. Thanks for sharing these garden shots. What you have done in your garden is what I actually wanted to accomplish when I started out..... however, I was NOT able to achieve this. I would REALLY like to plant closer together, but I get such sever BS.... You say that you spray, and I do as well. I actually try and spray weekly not biweekly, but it depends on how windy it gets... sometimes I just can't seem to get out there because of the wind.... but my main question to you is HOW do you get into spray the roses..... when they are close together.... even though that is WHAT I want, I find I can't get into to spray the undersides of the leaves... I am get all tangled.... I keep singing George George George of the Jungle.....

I just chalk it up to my Bull in China closet syndrome.....

Your garden i just beautiful

You might refer to pictures submitted by Ben. He post on many threads. His beds are packed and he lives in Plano which is just down from Dallas. Roses grow big here in Texas and he has them in mass and is successful. He does spray faithfully. Dallas rosarians think it is humid here but it very dry compared to Houston. I grew roses in Houston for most of my life and Dallas has no concept of real humidity. Good luck.

Sharon thanks a lot for such nice praise. It has been a great adventure. To answer your question I think pray volume is the key to getting into the tangle of leaves. I use a large 15 gallon sprayer with a 12volt pump. The wand was straight but my husband bent the distal portion of it to a gentle curve so I can spray upwards. Then I just spray and spray from the top and turn my wand to the bottom of the bushes and spray upwards. I am not certain everything gets it, but I try as best as I can. I use about 15 gallons per spray cycle skipping drift roses and some Kordes that need no spraying here. If you would like some recommendations of those that get no blackspot here I’ll be happy to share. I just added Quicksilver on Moses’ recommendations and I am very happy with it.

"The Undaunted Garden" would help you so much mmmm12. She deals with difficult weather in Colorado.

Dianela - oh my!!! Those beds are sensational! When I saw your Ballerina...I gasped!! Amazing!

mmmm - I agree with you... :) LOL it's not just me then. :)

Mmmm12, you are too hard on yourself! Your roses are so young and you got them as very small plants from HCR. Usually I grow mine up in pots for that summer and plant in the fall just to give them a head start. I don't think you can judge for a few more years truly. Think about how gorgeous your once blooming climber did It was magnificent, but it had been blooming for a while and growing good roots. I thought all my roses were going to stay small and now in their third and fourth year they finally look like roses!

Vapor, your garden looks great. I love the red rose with the silver in front.

Vapor you garden is to die for. WOW I had seen some of bed borders but the entire wide view really show them off. I just absolutely LOVE the look. What is the gorgeous silver plant at the front of your border? It really bring up the beauty of your roses while complimenting every other color. I have always been a huge fan of your gorgeous veranda.

Vapor, oh that looks sooo good! How big of a piece of property do you have? It looks big and spacious yet still has the cozy feel I love

Vapor, I join the others in saying wow, what a great garden!

The reason I had a moment (and fleeting) feeling of dismay when I was admiring Diane's garden is that she said it was 4 years old. My rose bed is also 4 years old and looks like this today.

That being what it is, I did read the raising roses in Colorado booklet by the Denver Rose Society and knew we would never do all that they advise. It is simply too much. So I take what I can get from my little cutting bed. I'm confident it will offer much to admire during the summer.

mmmm, that looks very nice, and Colorado has more challenging weather. Dianela has done an amazing job in Alabama, as has Diane up in Idaho whose garden is gorgeous and older. Your Denver Botanical Garden was wonderful when I went a few Falls ago. The blue asters were outstanding and I got some for my garden here. Lauren Springer has beautiful photos and suggestions for roses in her books. Roses and all plants will eventually rachet down to what works in your area. You are lucky to have High Country Roses for help too.

Thank you so much Carol. I am glad you like Ballerina, she is one of my all time favorites even tho she gets a ton of blackspot. I have a weakness for hybrid musks.

mmmm you rose bed looks super nice. You are definitely being too hard on yourself. For a zone 5 which is significantly colder than my 7b those roses look fresh and ready to go this year. Gardening in zone 5 is way more challenging than in my zone with almost no dieback. Looking forward you seeing your blooms.

Vaporvac, I love your rose garden and especially how you have other flowers planted among them. It just amazes me how people make their gardens look so lovely. I think that is why I like garden shots not just the rose pics.... it gives me inspiration.... not that I will always achieve the outcome, but I think that is because of zone differences, and diseases.... but it at least gives me something to aspire to... Too many garden magazines don't really show case their roses in landscaping or they just show knockouts....

Thanks for sharing,,,,

By the way I have a tiny little rose I grew from seed from Barcelona..... it has bloomed once. It smelled great, but did not last long at all.... hopefully as it matures it will last longer.

Vaporvac - my goodness!!! What a gorgeous garden!!!

mmmm. I think your garden is lovely. Even though your garden is also 4 years old you probably have to deal with a dormant period. Doesn't it get pretty cold in your winters? Comparing your garden against a garden that grows all year long is putting yourself at a disadvantage..... I live in zone 10 so my roses grow all year long.... no dormant period. I have large bushes, but not always healthy.... I am always fighting disease and insects.... many of the insects are not native but being brought in by nurseries and producers.... without a winter kill of the insects I get huge populations of "insects" that have to be dealt with chemically because there is not a natural predator to devour such "critters".... and sometimes it takes awhile to figure out what insecticide will get the job done...

I no longer compare my garden by size of bushes, but by health.... and so I am sometimes giving myself the disadvantage, but alas people seem to find fault in themselves, and I am no exception.... working on it though.

I hope you will post some pictures when your garden is in full bloom, because I think the layout is lovely.... As I have stated, I love pictures that are entire garden shots, because it allows me to see what others have done, and what the possibilities might be.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement. As I said above the moment was fleeting. I probably shouldn't have posted it. Normally I love seeing everyone's gardens because they are so pretty. It was just the "4 years" comment that got me as I expected to have much fuller rose bushes at year 4 based on the reading I had done prior to planting roses.

Our garden gives us much satisfaction in all seasons. Here is a picture from yesterday.

We even joined the Denver Rose society last year so we could tour people's gardens who did well with roses. Unfortunately the one tour they had we couldn't make and there will probably be no tours this year.

Mmmm12, You have a beautiful yard that so neat and well-kept. Only in my (and my neighbors') dreams would my entire yard look that good! Your roses are wonderful and you have a lot of room for more!!! That's one advantage of die-back. Truly, I think once you find the right roses, things will fill out and you'll feel you have more of the look you're want. Chasing after rainbows got me down, so I'm now focusing on what I've discovered likes my conditions and will gain size, although that has taken a lot of rose buying to find out and I'm still not there by a long shot. I'm really noticing the difference a warmer winter can make on cane retention. With a low of only +12F this year, the equivalent of a Z7/8 winter. there was hardly any cane death except in the really tender ones such as Dark Desire. It really brings it home how those just a bit south of me have such huge plants. It was thrilling to see Maggie attain some growth. However, the early and late frosts through some of them into a permanent dormancy. I hope they have the rose tours with social distancing.

You guys are too kind and it touches me in a way I can't express considering the state into which I let this yard fall. I'm still trying to wrangle many areas, but worked really hard on this upper level as it's most visible to me and where I used to spend the most time, especially at night which is the reason for many light coloured roses and plants. It also needed to show from afar since I'm the only one that seems to visit all the roses! :-) When I redid everything after having to dig up the entire yard (literally) to fix the "green" portion of the roof, only the 100 yr old New Dawn, spring bulbs, yucca and a few miscellaneous plants were spared. I used to have complicated perennial beds here which required an enormous amount of time which with a time intensive job was just a pipe-dream. They became a disaster, so when I had the opportunity to replant I chose to focus on my first love, roses, and flowering low care shrubs, mainly hydrangea and spirea that I got for $5 each one year at Menard's I went ahead and planted them even before clearing anything out just to give them a start. Then I had to teach the deer this wasn't their home anymore! Still working on that. : (( My few underplantings are Stachys Lanata, a lavender and May wine gallium. That's it. I started with carnations and Sweet William, but they died. I also have one Monarda that's hanging in there, but I moved the geranium to another place. Thank you so much. I have a couple of other pics that show the side areas more closely that I'll post in a bit.

Vaporvac, I was delighted to see those wide shots of 'part' of your garden. That 'part' would be enough for me. I would be thrilled if I could achieve it.

I think you already have, Titian. :-)

The beds above show the S/SW, S/SE and East bed Here are close-up of the East with Ballerina and Bordeaux, the SW corner with NewDawn, Bolero, Mme Norbert Levavasseur, Maggie and Viking and a pic from last year of the West "U" bed which is The Tooth Fairy, DarceyB x2, Milano. It now contains Marie Pavie, Gruss an Aachen and Pretty Jessica. I hope to replace DB and Milano with either Ascot or Flamenco Rosita. Please click to see entire picture clearly.

This is the Tooth Fairy today. After a warm winter.

Missmary, I guess we've gone a bit OT, so I apologize, but from my viewpoint you can plant closely if your roses don't grow too large and they're healthy to start. Those pictured are growing into one another and are quite good on BS, but not all. In my front yard, everything is widely spaced and many have already lost their leaves no spray, so for me, it is really the variety that determines BS to a large degree, not spacing. I use a mosquito sprayer that gives a mist covering all surfaces, but didn't get to it in time this year.

Vaporvac - your The Toothfairy is mind blowing!!! GASP!

Thanks everyone for sharing wide shots of the garden. I enjoy seeing roses are incorporated into the landscape.