My house faces roughly N/W, in the morning, as the sun comes up over the back of the house, the house itself, and the porch, shades part of the front yard. If you look at my graphed drawing, the area that has Kramer's Supreme camellia, ie about 5-6 feet out from the porch, is shaded until noon, during the summer. At around noon or 1 pm, the sun comes up over the house and the shadow moves back. So roughly, from about 1pm to 6 pm, there is no shade in the front yard. The exception being the area right next to the garage that has Marie Bracey Camellia. Rita Sammons gets sun, but Marie Bracey gets very little due the the garage shade. >> early HTs for your front yard, preferably Vintage Type 1, 2 or 3. Sherry. I have no idea what a Vintage Type 1, 2 or 3 is. :) :) Do you mean the growth habit types Vintage Gardens list ( http://www.vintagegardens.com/classhabits/HT.gif ) ? I'm not sure where to find more information on early HT to see what I like. I have La France cl., that's about all I know. :) If that's true,... then I really like stuff like Mrs. E. G. Hill, Hermann Lindecke, Jean Cote, Reichsprasident von Hindenberg, Reynolds Hole, Surville :) Sherry, do you have any photos of your trained E Veyrat? :) Ingrid : I like Rosette Delizy... but the coloring is a little too red-yellow for me. I'd prefer red-cream or pink-yellow, etc.. if that makes sense. Berndoodle - I'm so new, I don't know how nepeta looks later in the season, so I guess I'll find out! Right now I'm trying one or two each of a few different perennial ground cover plants to see which can tolerate the situation best. and then I'll try repeating them all along the sides of the beds and sidewalks interspersed with other companion plants and short groundcover-like roses. Or at least that's the plan. I'm starting to get the hang of watering the lavender properly and which varieties I like better, but I'll probably wait until next year to get more of any sort of repeating ground cover like this. I want to make sure it does well all year, like you said, and that I like it all year. re: Rita Sammons, that's great! That basically was what my plan was, to keep Rita at about 4-5 feet wide. So that the camellia behind it is taller, and then something short and soft at Rita's feet. I thought it would be cute in the front on the walkway, too. I've always thought of Cecile Brunner and it's babies as something you pop the flowers off and put in your hair for fun. elemire - It's probably a smaller arbor, I haven't bought one yet, but around 4-5 feet wide, I'm guessing. So... are you saying I should remove/move Gloire de Dijon and just have one rose (sombrieul) climb up over the arbor. Will it cover both sides...? (assuming I have something smaller at the feet anyway...) ----------- UPDATED DEEP AND MEANINGFUL THOUGHTS: :) :) I'm inclined not to get a large tea at all. Instead... I'm thinking about doing: ---- Putting Grandmother's hat in the 7-9 foot corner in the backyard with the arbor in front of it. It could get as tall as it liked here and that would be just charming. The arbor has Sombrieul and Gloire de Dijon on it. I may have to move those two back just a tiny bit to give Grandmother's Hat some more space. But if Grandmother's Hat is beautiful most of the year and has a lovely bush shape,... then it seems pretty perfect for me. I already own it and I know I love the smell and bloom look. Not sure whether I should remove the tiny Gloire de Dijon band... it might be too hard to train with Sombrieul on a small/medium-ish arbor. ---- inclined to see if the HOA will let me remove one of the western redbud trees so that I can have less eventual shade in the front. I'm wondering whether I could put it on that strip of land on the other side of the garage (which currently has nothing). But I'd have to add some irrigation there...? ---- finding out what camellias are low and tolerate both sun and shade and considering planting a couple pink ones as the lining of the porch (inbetween the two Madame Alfred Carriere). That would give me a different shape than all the roses and would give me blooming in winter. ---- for along the border of the two properties, considering adding some more agapanthus, or just researching more evergreen low-ish shrubs and see what I like there. Not a hard line, but some soft groups of them along the property line. Not truly evergreen, but I suppose I could try a daylily, too? ------------ for the "A" spot, I'm considering: Curious about what a mature bush looks like, whether it tolerates pruning and whether it holds onto spent blooms poorly. I'm asking AntiqueRoseEmporium about what they think the size would be on the mature bush. I like that it blooms in winter sometimes, too. color change. (YAY!) ~~~~~ Archduke Charles. again, I'm asking AntiqueRoseEmporium about what they think the size would be on the mature bush. I'd love to see more photos of the mature bush and what it looks like post\-flush, etc. I've heard several accounts of it doing well in heat and drought. color change. (YAY!) ~~~~~ Bermuda's Kathleen Really not sure on the size of this one. I'm guessing about the same as Archduke and General. Perpetual blooming, probably. color change. (YAY!) ~~~~~ Ghislaine de Féligonde (or a Noisette or Cornelia or Felicia) If I need to be concerned about shade tolerance, then I was thinking about going with one of these. I liked that Ghislaine de Féligonde has the color changing aspect. It's fragrant and isn't covered in thorns. It can apparently take hard pruning, too, in case it gets out of control. I already have a Felicia that I was trying out. I'm also partial to older\-style Noisettes (like Champney's Pink Cluster and Narrow Water) in pale pink since I'm from Charleston and I like the style anyway. Or I could go with the Lavender Pink Noisette that I already have. \-\-\-\-\-\-\-OTHERS\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- ~~~~~ Tipsy Imperial Concubine plan to shove her in a very pretty pot. ;) ~~~~~ molieux maybe get a couple so that there can be some balance of yellow. ... I'm hoping if I can work some yellow and white companion plants in, then the yellow won't be too much. Or I could put it in the backyard somewhere where I already have a couple Jude the Obscures and some yellow daisies. ~~~~~ SdlM somewhere in the back. I have a couple spots for a medium rose. :) ~~~~~ Yves Piaget smaller footprint, I have a couple spots I could fit her. ~~~~~ Mme. Berard The idea with this would be to basically let Mme Berard trail over a short decorative fence. Would Mme. Berard work for this? I already have Mme Berard, but I could just leave it in the back climbing the house as it is. ~~~~~ if I get any climbing tea, I'll have it climb up the back of my house where I can appreciate it, but won't have to deal with cleanup. ~~~~~ I still have for placing (already own, but are in the pot ghetto): Lavender Lassie Lavender Pink Noisette Maman Cochet cl Alchemist Eden cl Madame Joseph Bonnaire Eventually I wanted to get a pergola, so some of the climbers, whatever I don't find other places for, could go there. Mme Joseph Bonnaire is probably a normal HT size, so that won't be too hard to find a spot for. I have a couple more small climber positions, too. ~~~~~ and then for mini and front\-of\-bed roses, I was considering: Kosters, Pink Rosette, Sweet Chariot, The Faun, Pomponella, Gruss an Aachen (I already have Compassionate Friend and Duftendes Weisskirchen)

I live in upper zone 7... which means frost around Mid-October and then warm-ups off and on until it gets more dependably cold in late November to mid February. I grow almost entirely bearded iris, and I have successfully transplanted them until maybe 3rd week of September, but had only moderate survival rates (maybe 50%)later than that. What seems to happen is FROST HEAVE yanking them out of the ground before the roots can set deep enough to really anchor the plants. Possible solution: mulch with something that will keep the soil from freezing (but be careful not to bury the rhizome itself... it could rot)... or surround with heavy rocks. Rocks moderate soil temperature plus their sheer weight has a little "anchor" effect, too. I have to put rocks around all my iris when first set just to keep the armadillos from digging them up. Bearded Iris can also be stored for quite a long time (several months) in a well-ventilated back room that's comfortable-to-you. It will cost you a year's bloom, but most of them will be just fine to plant when the weather is more friendly. Check them occasionally to be sure they are not molding or infested with insects (a few apids can multiply to a fatal epidemic), and be sure they are lying BARE ROOT, not packed in anything to retain moisture. The roots on them will dry up, but you will see tiny nodes where new roots are eager to spring into action, and they will begin to grow when they hit warming soil with moisture.

Hi chelone :-) I have some of your Siberian iris! lol I really should rename them Rte 95 iris. :-) I just found out from someone on the iris forum who is planning on going into the iris business in 2008, that she has over 100 varieites of siberian iris so far. I didn't even know there were that many. They seem indestructible. So tell me, are all your German iris unnamed? Are they tall bearded, or other? I haven't tried the Japanese, and guess I won't considering I have dry soil pretty much and no low spots to speak of. Have any photos of some of your iris? :-)

Hi, I'm Beth. We moved to Forney about a year ago to be closer to our daughters and families. I am retired but DH is still working and travels so I have a lot of time on my hands. We bought a house with a flat acre of nothing but black clay and weeds. Last year I mainly assessed what was in the ground which as it turns out wasn't much. There were knock out roses in beds that only got three hours of sun a day and a variety of shrubs out of shape and just hanging on from lack of water. The beds and yard are in terrible shape and need a lot of amendments so this year will be spent getting the ground in shape to plant so this year will be one of container gardening. I've never worked with such terrible conditions so it is a little overwhelming. The front of the house is mainly shade facing NNE. Shade is new for me. The back will be where I will have to plant all my roses. So I'm thinking hostas and some annuals in the front for now. We have a pretty strict HOA so I am limited on what I can do in the front. I keep telling myself all in good time. Since I am starting from scratch I'd love to know more about how the swaps work and wonder if I can swap non-plant things. I have some baby roses rooting but they won't be ready for a new home for a few months yet.