These are all so lovely, Jackie. You are recovering so quickly from the rose moving project!

Gorgeous, Jackie! Your roses are fantastic, but I am also really interested in your raised circular mini beds created from wall stones. I am planning something similar in a spot over the end of a French drain. The soil over the river rock is too shallow, but the spot desperately needs a shrub. It looks like your raised roses are very happy! Did you create the stone circles for the aesthetic effect alone or were there underlying practical gardening challenges like poor drainage or shallow soil? Your entire bed of hardscapes plus plants is lovely! Carol

Beautiful! Your garden is dreamy. I always enjoy your posts.

Gorgeous!♡

I forgot to add - "nothing new under the sun" - the low "stone" wall and the pillars attached to it you can see in the above pictures were original to the house (1905), and are actually made of concrete! We like the way the new grey "stone" things blend in with the old wall.

Jackie

Jackie, please tell your DH that the wall stone beds are perfect! I am going to borrow his genius solution and create a raised area over my french drain. Carol

Good - let us see a picture of how it turns out. It does sound like a perfect solution to your problem.

Jackie

So lovely, Jackie.

You're getting gentle rain once or twice a week?!? Lucky you!

I wish I could stand on your sidewalk and gaze into your yard...

I like that you have some space between the street and your yard. Mine is too close to the street for my taste.

Well, we did get gentle rain two weeks in a row, but now they don't expect any more rain here until Oct/Nov, which is normal for us.

Yes, we are lucky that all of the lots on our street are set back from the street by an extra 15 feet or so. Years ago, around 1900, the city expropriated that land from lots that were not even built on yet, to build a "grand boulevard". Luckily, they never built it, because they built a freeway overpass a few blocks away instead. Even though the City owns the land (in the pics above, everything from where the short "stone" wall is - that is why it is there), they let us landscape it with anything we want as long as it does not block the sidewalk or extend into the street, or is too tall.

Your garden is so breathtaking beautiful, Jackie! I can't wait for mine to mature and look like that. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you, Alana. I just got in from running around taking more pictures of different parts of the garden not pictured above. I am going to start another thread with those - I love this time of year!

Jackie

Your welcome! Can't wait to see them. This is my favorite time of year as well. There is so much beauty in all the seasons. I've been working on adding more season shrubs and bulbs. They bulk of my bloom is Spring. So I have been working on adding summer and winter interests in the garden. Although, in the summer, I tend to shut down with the roses, love going swimming, and them I tend to get more energy back in the fall.

Have you tried hellebores for Winter ? Mine start blooming in Dec, and the blooms stay on until now. They love shade. They are initially a bit expensive (although Brecks has specials sometimes at $5 each), but they self seed babies, so you can dig those up and plant them anywhere. Also salvia leucantha - it starts blooming here in the Fall, and continues all winter.

Jackie

@jacqueline9CA

@Alana8aSC

I am a huge hellebore fan, too! In addition to seeding, they seem to divide well when mature. I just divided my dusky purple one and one that is white with purple spots. Now I have twice the winter fun! (Pardon the leftover brown winter mess! I am behind in spring chores.)

OK I want to drive up and see the whole area now. Must be wonderful.

They are long-lived, too - I have 3 beds of them, and they grow and bloom each year without me doing anything to them except take off the dead old leaves when the new ones start coming up (they will still be OK if you don't do that, but not look as nice). Mine are actually starting to pop up in beds where they never were planted, dozens of feet away from any other hellebore. All I can think if is that the birds or squirrels or somebody is planting them - yay!

Jackie

I agree - Hellebores are great low maintenance plants with a long blooming season. They also do really well for me here in Southern Calif.

Alana8aSC - Something I just love for Autumn blooming is Japanese Anemone. Low green foliage all year then in late August they send up tall flower stalks with beautiful white or pink single or double flowers with a yellow center. There are many varieties now. Not sure about their hardiness as that's not something I have to consider. They also multiply over time.

I just saw all the replies y'all! Thank you everyone, I will definitely look them all up and read about them. Thank y'all so much again!

Jackie I love seeing your photos of how your new garden is coming together. I love to see how you and your husband problem solve to come up with ways to keep old roses going and looking their best.

Thank you Kes - I have discovered over the years that here, old roses on their own roots (at least the ones which like it here), can live for decades, and I am positive some of the ones which I did not plant, but inherited, were 90-100 years old by the time they finally died of old age. So, we feel sort of like care takers, and do not rip roses out to try new and better ones (I can recall only 2 we have shovel pruned in 32 years - they were both ones I planted without realizing they would HATE it here), we just try to make the ones we have happy. Another thing I have discovered with several of our roses is that they improved with age - there are some which I planted, and even at, say 5 years old was not happy with their shape or blooming. Ha! when those roses got to be 10 or 15 years old they "came into their own", bloom more now, and now are larger with much more attractive shapes. Maybe some old roses on their own roots become "mature" at an older age? No idea, but I find myself noticing this phenomenon more and more.

Jackie

My Madame Berkeley Tea is doing that Jackie. It is gradually looking better. OTOH my climbing Lady Banks and wisteria had a tough freeze/thaw Spring and might be going the other way.

When I have more time I think I will start a thread about this, and with "now" photos vs "then" photos of the same roses.

Jackie

I would also be interested in reading about which roses you think take the longest time to come into their own

OK - another vote for my new project - thanks!

Jackie