Congratulations!! That's awesome!!

So exciting! Can’t wait to see how it goes

Dee, I m glad that you are feeling better and are finding interest in your garden and roses again.

Julia Child is a great rose to jump back in with

Hope to see you on here lots

I LOVE my Julia Child! I was just looking at it yesterday and thinking how rewarding it is. It had a lot of winter die back this spring and I cut it back to the ground, so it was small this season, but the new canes formed a very attractive framework and the foliage is the healthiest I've ever seen it. Right now it's having it's 3rd flush of blooms. I'll try to get a photo later. I just give it Coast of Maine compost and alfalfa meal in the spring and some fish emulsion when I remember it.

PM2, your Julia is one of the reasons I've admired her for so long! I've followed your journey with her and she is such a beautiful rose and seems to be a healthy one too. And I know we have similar garden conditions (cough, cough, shade!) so if you can grow her hopefully I can too!

Thanks guys, for the kind words of encouragement. I remember this forum as being one of the kindest and most supportive forums on GW, and I'm glad to see it still is!

:)

Dee

Congratulations diggerdee, hope that Julia Child does wonderful for you. I think you chose one of the very best varieties to re-enter rose growing.

You made a great decision, Dee. I've never regretted growing my first two Julias (since 2006 when she was first sold), and so now I grow a third. She's still, after all these years, one of my top favorites. Diane

My Julia, a band, was planted late last year, almost fall, surrounded by roses three times her height, but she's catching up and never stops blooming. Definitely a wise choice.

Thanks guys! I'm feeling encouraged lol. PM2, I've long eyed New Dawn but have always been a little afraid of the size of her lol.

Julia should be arriving shortly and I'm excited to get her in the ground. I also look forward to spending some time over the upcoming winter and going back to my "research" of pink and apricot roses. I really do research them - size, ideal growing conditions, disease resistance, etc - but in reality it always just turns into a longer and longer wish list and then I do an "eeny meeny miney mo" type of thing. I've got to try to have some restraint!

:)

Dee

Restraint?? What is that ?

Dee, speaking from quite a bit of experience with New Dawn, I have to say you were wise to proceed with caution when it comes to New Dawn. Prairie, your roses and plants are gorgeous. How do you keep New Dawn under control around the nearby plants. I think my New Dawn would have obliterated everything in sight. Diane

Kristine, you're like New Dawn. You don't know what restraint is--ha. Most of us don't. Diane

LOL, that's one reason why I stopped growing roses - or stopped *buying* them (I do have about half a dozen old ones) - almost cold turkey. I was buying every rose I fell in love with, despite having a very shady yard and not really enough time to devote to my garden. In other words, no restraint lol.

In the past few years I've lost some trees (including a beautiful triple-trunked oak that we tried so hard to save) so I have a bit more sun, and more time as well, since my kids are grown. I also have a tighter budget, lol, but maybe that's a good thing! So I am now venturing back into the rose world but hopefully as a wiser, more experienced gardener who will (try to!) select roses based on what will grow well. And one who will remind herself that she does not need EVERY pink or apricot rose ever bred. A few of each will (or should!) do!

Luckily for me (and my lack of restraint) I had a friend who had New Dawn, (TWO of them, actually, growing over a huge arbor) and while they were spectacular and magnificent and I fell in love immediately, I saw up close and personal how huge they get and so I have been able to resist. I sometimes wonder if my shade would keep things in check, but then I tell myself that "in check" also could mean "failure to thrive", and who wants a straggly looking New Dawn? Or any other straggly rose? Not worth it if it doesn't do well. Better to focus on a few, shade-tolerant roses that will do well, and a few that I MUST have in my limited sun.

I've always been a fairly practical gardener - I love my shade gardens and have shade-appropriate plants, and I installed a really wonderful garden with appropriate plants in a veritable swamp for a friend, so I've always been a "work with what you've got" gardener. Except roses. They were always my downfall, lol and so now I'm hoping to be more practical with them!

:)

Dee

Diane, The area I have it in only has 5-6hrs of sun for starters. I added a Penelope rose there first, which is an old bloom once rose, that is very vigorous and healthy. The roses are pretty small and mildly fragrant. I tried digging it out at one point and putting the New Dawn there was supposed to be temporary. I was going to put up an arbor and never did. So no restraint for me either. [g] I fell in love with New Dawn watching the P.Allen Smith show, who had a gorgeous new dawn on a large arbor. I should have waited until I had the Arbor up before I thought about buying New Dawn.

So,that small fence area became my only place to put anything vertical and so I just kept parking things there and never ended up with trellises and arbors to put them on. I added the Honeysuckle and the Clematis and the Penelope sneaked back in. lol Then I added the 'Aloha' and now there is definitely no more room left.

Plus - there are tree roots there...lol. And I don't fertilize or improve the soil. I neglect them all. Sometimes I prune some long canes of New Dawn, but they just do their own thing.

This was their best year yet. They all seem to bloom at the same time, which was unplanned. And I get a lot of pleasure from them for a brief 3-4 weeks with no effort from me and then they're done for the year.

Here is new dawn in the front, the Mandarin Orange Honeysuckle and Penelope in the background.

Clematis Blue Angel

Aloha

They are all so beautiful, Prairie. And how wonderful they are all living peacefully for those few special weeks of bloom. The clematis is exquisite..... I could never grow two New Dawn on a single arbor (I've grown several over the years separately). The one New Dawn I had growing on my arbor several years ago managed to break it good. Then my son in law fixed it and wrapped wire around the base, connecting the arbor to cattle fence posts he'd taken a sledge hammer to, driving the posts a few feet into the ground. The arbor is on a slight slope which makes things more unstable. Now a giant Colette grows on it and will probably permanently kill the arbor in the near future. At that point, I'll be through with climbers. One last thing-- your honeysuckle vaguely reminds me of the yellow trumpet vine I grew for years--devil plant. I'm still trying to get rid of the last of that one. It even managed to come up in our deep basement window wells. Now how, the heck did it get down there?

Dee, my yard has become more shady over the years, and is causing a lot of problems for the roses. I can understand how shade limited you in the past, but it's nice you got some more sun at the expense of the trees, unfortunately. What stopped me cold from buying more roses was simply running out of room. This is a small yard, and the roses grow big here, so I was forced, like it or not, to stop acquiring more roses. I love all the new offerings, but it's pretty easy to refrain from buying, plus I'm too old to be expanding my garden. I'm really old. Diane

That is Colette in early June. Diane

Diane, For a minute I thought your photos were of New Dawn, but it’s Colette. Very pretty!

I don’t know about anyone else but I just love the look of a climbing rose. So that’s disappointing to put up an arbor and the rose damages it!

So, no more climbers for you?

Trumpet Vine - very scary vine. I saw a photo of one with a trunk as big as a tree trunk.

If Colette breaks the arbor, no more climbers for me. I'm too old and unsteady to be climbing stepladders to prune climbers. Diane

Yes, we're getting to that point too. Gutters are the other thing. We do the lower gutters, but one of the kids does the higher ones. My 4 ft high fence w climbers on it, is an old fence and they don't seem to be bothering it. I keep doing balance exercises and feel like gardening keeps you young, but...have to pick your battles. [g]

Oh my gosh, Diane, that walkway to your house is just breathtaking! If that doesn't say "welcome" nothing does!! What are the yellow roses?

Oh God, here I go again....

:)

Dee

Thank you so much, Dee. The larger yellow roses are Julia Child (they are about 7 feet tall right now), and the two smaller ones, also on either side of the sidewalk (one is partially visible on the left), are Bernstein-Rose. If you go to the Summer (seasonal) thread you can see several photos of this rose and info on it; toward the end of the thread.

I agree, Prairie, that gardening keeps you younger and in shape, but there are limits. I'll be 76 on Nov 7. That's coming up fast, and I don't look forward to it. May you have years of gardening ahead of you. Diane

I'm not all that far behind you, Diane, [g]. For sure, my husband and I are not doing what we were doing even 5 years ago.

I agree with Dee, such an inviting entrance to your front door! And your Julia Childs are bigger and bushier than mine ever are! You grow roses so well!

I agree - gardening (or I guess any physical activity) gets harder as we get older, but on the flip side, if we *don't* continue to do it, we just get older faster! I remember my grandfather making "old man noises" lol, as he got down on the floor to play with us, and then got up again, and I thought to myself as a kid, geez, I'll never be like that! Hah. Right. I think I've been making "old lady noises" since I was in my 30's! Sometimes for something as simple as siting down! (geez, not even for getting UP out of a chair but sitting DOWN in it lol!)

Diane, I was *hoping* those were Julia Child! Makes me know for sure I picked the right rose for my return plunge haha!

:)

Dee