Bliss in front of bed over 4ft, will be moving her to the back this fall

Front yard looking a bit like a jungle

I don’t think it looks like a jungle at all. I think it looks wonderful!

Thank you @oursteelers 8B PNW in person it looks pretty wild lol! i like a more formal garden, which is why i have the boxwoods, roses in the back. the roses in the front are supposed to stay in the small side. only bolero is behaving lol. i want to prune them so i can have round bushes

I agree that’s gorgeous to me and if you want to see a jungle , well come on over and bring a machete ! 😂

My Olivia does the same and I keep shaping it . It doesn’t seem to mind . Still blooms and dosnt through a fit . Your bliss looks amazing . I’m not sure why mine isn’t happy but I hope it gets happy .

I usually let my roses grow wild as big as I want it and then prune according.

So Lily, do you prune even the long 5ft canes? i read it somewhere that those are the canes the rose is producing for next year. lol 🤷‍♀️ i want them to be cute round bushes and bot spindly crazy grow. is it not possible to have nice looking rose bushes?

They look like happy, healthy roses!

I have only been growing roses for a few years, but my experience has been that different varieties have different growth habits.... You can certainly deadhead these with the desired shape in mind and prune those long canes, but I’ve never found a tidy sphere that blooms.

If you like a more formal garden perhaps consider a low boxwood hedge encircling the rose bushes? There are some great photos online of the David Austin garden that show how boxwoods can be used to create a more formal appearance.

Good luck!

Ceres, I think it looks beautiful but if you aren't happy just bring it down and in when you deadhead . Our Lady of Shallot wants to throw canes with blooms on top so those I bri g way down. Nothing has stopped blooming and the roses are shorter and more compact.

@threelittlelights13ny7a

that is what i had in mind when i planted Oliva. but instead she is a mess with canes as high as 5.5ft. it might be my climate which is pretty hot.

@Kristine LeGault 8a pnw thats’s good to know! im so afraid of cuting the beautiful new canes thinking I’m going to take their strenght away. after this flush i will do a nice prune

@Lilyfinch z9a Murrieta Ca forgot to say that bliss gets a lot of water. they are where the sprinklers reach. always very moist

David Austin roses are shrub roses not bedding roses; they are bred to grow tall and wide. The David Austin site says 4 1/2 feet in height is what you should expect from Olivia Rose, so yours are growing exactly as they should and looking very lovely and well cared for, too, if I may say so. With all the rain we have been having it is not surprising that they have exceeded predictions by 6 inches or more. If you really like a tidy look, you can buy so-called "patio," "drift", or "ground cover" roses that stay in the three foot range and under, though, if that's the look you are after.. In any case, it's a good idea to check the label and see what the grower says to expect, even though it might be different in an individual garden's conditions.

@CeresMer Zone 7a NJ The inspiration picture shows the roses planted much closer together and when planted like that the canes overlap and they become a single, fuller shape. Those individual tall canes that pop out dont draw the eye as much when planted that way because there are do many of them! David Austin was big on planting in groups of at least 3 and planting several bushes together to form larger shapes and hedges. The boxwoods are also planted probably 1.5-2’ apart depending on variety to form the low hedge. Overall it is a dense planting that would likely take a few seasons to mature, but you would have to plant your garden differently to achieve that look.

although @monarda_gw also has a very good point! It’s hard to judge scale in photos like that, but the garden in your inspiration photo is probably quite tall, which you might not want in that spot! It’s a losing battle to fight the mature size a plant wants to be.

Your porch in the backgound looks like such a nice place to sit and enjoy whatever garden you have planted. Hope you find something you love for that spot!

Olivia can get up to 6+ feet in 2-3 years in California and elsewhere with mild winter. Unlike in the UK, it is definietely not a rose that stays within the 4 feet tall range. In fact most David Austin roses that said 4 feet in height in their catelog will get to at least 5 - 6 feet unless you live in areas with issues of winter die back, in zone 5 - 6.

My Olivia got up to 6 feet after 2 years even with extensive summer pruning. It does throw octopus canes. During its first year it reached 4 feet. It is in the back of the my rose bed.

You can safely prune those long canes for Olivia. It won't mind at all. After all it is not a once blooming old garden rose which you dont' want to prune at this point of the year. However, if you wish to have rose bushes that stay around 3 - 4 feet with rouind shape, most Austins are not in that category. The exceptions are Munstead Wood and Boscobel, which I managed to keep around 3&1/2 feet tall.

Agree with threelittlelights13 that planting in groups may help in the look. My garden is semi-gormal with a lot of boxwood which were planted 1&1/2 feet apart - now all grown together. and helped to create a more formal look. I am not sure that's what you are looking for, and perhaps you just want a neater looking garden. Nevertheless, I included a few photos below. Those in the fronts are Boscobel and Bolero which does stay wtihin 4 feet with pruning. The yellow is Julia Child which actually reached 5 feet in the spring.

Also you may be able to avoid some octopus canes by not giving the roses fertilizer high in nitrogen after the spring. I typically don't give grandular fertilizer with N higher than 5, but with much higher K to encouarge just blooming and not growth. Anyway you probably know this already.

@Rose Lai (9b) Your garden is so beautiful! I have included roses in my cottage gardens for years, but I started planting a new rose garden using bare root David Austins in the same semiformal style this spring... While I’m happy with the progress so far, it’s a slow go and seeing yours is such wonderful inspiration! Thank you for sharing!