After my son died two years ago, I bought Wollerton Old Hall and started a rose garden in his memory.

I started a rose garden at my first house because I wanted cut roses for the house. It was a 1970s ranch that was super easy to take care of and had a reasonably small yard. Because I worked full time I lived in it like a condo and had a lawn guy, a ladies gardening team and house cleaners. The ladies did all the garden work so I just got to enjoy it. I did put up an arbor and had it planted in a square area carved out of the lawn. I liked a formal look. Today the owners have a shed located there.

Our current rose garden came from an overgrown patch of bushes and trees. It was fully planted when we bought the house and we neglected it ever since. But stuff started to mature and die so we cleared it out and then pondered what to do.

This area was previously so thick with bushes and trees that no person could walk through it. Even our dogs had trouble getting through the thicket. It took professional tree removers and gardeners several passes to get it this cleared.

I didn't have any summer color from flowers in the yard so I wanted something that flowered then. We decided an experiment with roses would be worth trying. I didn't have alot of confidence they would do well in our hot west facing rock bed.

First rose was a gift from my dad, second, Iceberg, was from a garden center, the third was Robusta, mail order from Rogue Valley Roses. Then I found High Country Roses web site and saw it was local. We visited, talked to Matt, who looked askance at me when I described my rock bed, and bought a smattering of roses - Sally Holmes, Chuckles, Gourmet Popcorn, and Pretty Lady Rose. I was very excited by all the various bloom types I saw at the green house. In the first couple of years I often chose singles since they looked like exotic tropical flowers to me.

Much to my surprise the bed did well so we added some each year for the next three years and then declared it full.

Emmie

I am so sorry. I think starting a garden is a beautiful way to honor him, I hope it grows beautifully and gives you solace.

mmmm

A ladies gardening team??? I definitely need one of those!

My first rose plant was Miss All American Beauty too! It was 5 or 6' tall, and about 4' wide and bloomed in flushes all season. It was fairly healthy and very fragrant...looked like a shrub to me, not a hybrid tea. The man who owned the vacant lot beside us let me garden over there for five years or so.

Later I tried buying a MAAB plant in a body bag but it was incorrectly labelled. I think the second rose I grew over there was Camelot. Still have that one.

I found out about Almost Heaven Roses about 30 miles from me and then discovered antique and other types of roses. That was about 25+ years ago.

I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your son, Emmie. Two years ago is pretty recent.

BenT, Yes, the ladies gardening team was fantastic. They knew everything about plants and did it all with no direction from me. In fact I knew nothing about any of it. I don't think I ever gave them any direction at all on anything. I was working full time, traveled for work alot and spent all my weekends hiking and enjoying myself. In my memory, a well built 1970s ranch with the yards offset, so you look between the two houses behind you, is the best type of house to live in.

What a coincidence, Erasmus, that Miss AAB started both of our life long hobbies, she must be a winning rose! I still like the variety very much. With my current house I inherited a Camelot, it’s quite nice and I think of it as a shrub, too.

Camelot at my current house

Thank you, Ben, for the great thread! I think I may have shared at least part of my gardening story before as well.

Emmie, my heart goes out to you. I understand your pain. We too lost a son some years ago and that is when gardening became even more deeply meaningful to me. I grew up in a gardening family, but my parents mostly grew edible things, and my father especially considered it somewhat frivolous to grow anything strictly for beauty. I always craved flowers and foliage and beautiful plants. From the time I was young, I collected old cards of Victorian paintings of old roses… never cared too much for the modern hybrid teas that looked so stiff and formal. But they were better than nothing, so if I had half a chance I would take any flower that I could get my hands on. When I was seven years old, someone gave me a catalog that advertised several of David Austin’s earliest roses. I was enthralled and never forgot the name, though it would be years till I could get my hands on my first DA rose. My childhood was spent in very limited circumstances, many years as a missionary child in foreign countries. My first flower was a zinnia I grew from seed at five or six years old. In my teens, I learned to strike roses from cuttings and gave them to friends as birthday gifts. I married young and had a large family. They were happy years but busy. Any gardening I did was with my children and mostly vegetables, but about 15 years ago, I did start growing a few roses again, mostly ones that came with the house. Yes, they were hybrid teas and Knockouts! ;) But when our son died in 2006, I needed the therapy of growing something for beauty and not just for food. Gardening became a therapeutic passion for me. I, too, started a memory garden. When our family moved to Arizona in 2018, one of the first things I did was start a memory garden in my new location. And yes, I do grow DA roses now, among many others. I passed up the 100 mark some time ago and quit counting. :)

I started growing flowers in general because it was therapuetic. I was sad to discover how short a bloom window many perennials have. I tried roses because of their second and third flushes, and fell in love with roses once I found ones I wouldn’t have to spray to keep healthy. This forum is how I found which roses to order! I’m immensely grateful to all of you. I have a pretty much no spray garden even though I live near a foggy valley, thanks to everyone’s blackspot resistant recommendations.

Emmie and Judy, I am so sorry for the loss of your sons. Losing a child is a loss that you never get over, I pray that your gardens are a place of comfort. I think that it is no coincidence that God created a garden

Now, I believe that you are born with a love of soil and seeds and creating beauty from that. Sadly that gene skipped all of my kids lol

Early in my marrage my husband brought me home for Valentines Day a Jackson and Perkins Ingrid Bergman rose. They came in plantable boxes back then. In spute of my ineptitude Ingrid thrived. Then came that fateful day when I got hired on to work at Harry and David/ Jackson and Perkins and I was daily surrounded by roses. I couldnt get past a week without a new rose And then the giveawsys and discounts. So many roses that got shared with the neighbors lol

My husband is still wondering what he was thinking buying me my first rose.

My first rose was a gift from a gardening friend. She thought it was Lady of Shalott, but after a lot of discussion here on Houzz and then seeing my same plant in the Portland Rose Garden, I determined that I actually had At Last. They are similar in flower appearance but LoS has several distinctive differences (including fragrance). Anyway, I had this one rose for years before I ever thought to get more. I sort of preferred to enjoy roses in other people's gardens! :) And then one day a few years ago, something clicked and I just started LOVING roses. Perhaps it was watching so much Gardener's World on BritBox?

My first exposure to roses was with my honorary grandma's rose garden in the Napa Valley. She had hundreds of HTs and taught me how to care for them properly when I was around 12-13 years old. I think that probably planted the first seed for me, but it was 30 years later before I really started to do anything about it.

I'm now up to 65 roses, and if you saw how small my garden is, you would think I had lost my mind (I might have). As far as my first flowers go, an elderly neighbor named Lilian (also in Napa) gifted me some yellow mum starts and some pale lavender bearded iris from her own garden when I was about nine years old. I was hooked after that.

I started noticing a neighbor's garden when I was a child. She grew classic clematis and perennials in Southern Minnesota. I grew African violets indoors from seed and bulbs and perennials outside. I mailordered Mr. Lincoln and Peace and Tropicana HTs from J & P in the 1960s to start. Later, I segued to other rose classes.

My maternal GF was a gardener in the Chicago area. I think I got the gene from him. One of my three children got the gene too.

My Dad used to steal my rose buds to bring to the ladies at work.

Ben, I’ve always loved the pictures of your Camelot rose. I’m not familiar with that one, but it’s striking.

Ben - Miss All American Beauty (or Maria Callas) is a beauty for you!! I love how your whole family has this rose. :)

Emmie - your son died only two years ago? His death is still so fresh for you. I'm so sorry. If you want to share any part of his life, I'd love to hear. :) I'm glad you could start a rose garden in his memory...a place where you can be with him in peace. :)

Love these stories and the meaning and solace that comes from roses. Added thought that there's a reason that they are so often planted in cemeteries and other places of rememberence and history, not to mention that humans have loved them for many millenia.

My mother grew roses, my grandmother grew roses, my great-grandmother grew roses -- well, you get the idea. My grandmothers especially, living on subsistence, homesteaded ranches with very little cash early on, mostly got their roses from neighbors, other family, and friends. So some of the roses I got as cuttings from them, early 20th century varieties like 'La Marne', 'Margo Koster', and 'Cecile Brunner', were ones that they themselves got from cuttings. The first roses of my own came when we were finally able to afford a little house in the woods of western Massachusetts (Zone 5a then), when I was in my early 30s. I don't remember which rose was first to be planted in that garden, but I had 'Bonica', 'New Dawn', 'Queen Elizabeth', 'Gruss an Aachen', 'Louise Odier', 'Hansa', 'Blanc Double de Coubert', 'Therese Bugnet', 'Charles de Mills', and 'Tour de Malakoff' (which was supposed to be the Alba 'Celestial', but ordering from Wayside Gardens in those days could be a bit of a crapshoot). I did try a few other hybrid teas there, 'Mr. Lincoln' and a couple others now forgotten, but they didn't survive the winters.

I love to hear stories like this, great topic!

As a child I idolized my grandparents on my mother's side. In my eyes they were the coolest people I had ever met, and they both happened to be avid gardeners--my grandma with flowers and my grandpa with vegetables. I spent hours and hours in my grandma's magical flower garden in Michigan, and it seemed like she had every flower ever created in there!

My grandma had a big arbor between two areas that had climbing roses growing on it, and it was just magnificent. I couldn't believe someone could have something like that in their YARD! There was no way I was going to be without beauty like that at my own house when I grew up.

My grandparents passed away over 10 years ago and their magical gardens have now been pulled up by whoever lives in their old house now. For the past 6 years I have been living on a large piece of property that I am slowly transforming into my own version of my grandmother's garden, and I know she would be amazed at what I have done. The first rose I bought for it was, of course, a climber--Joseph's Coat. Then the area looked a little bare, so of course it needed companions, which led me down the rose rabbit hole on the internet and an obsession was born!

When I moved into my old house back in 1994 there was a huge unknown red rose bush on the property...My girlfriend showed me how to care for it...Around 2006 my Mom wanted that bush so I transplanted it to her house...( its still at her house to this day..) I actually missed it so bought a Precious Platinum rose in 2007-08ish that started me growing roses...

I no longer have PP and I have moved into a another

house in 2021...

Precious Platinum rose:

Judi

Thank you, I am also very thankful that we back to just talking about our love for roses and gardening here. I have always admired your garden and impressive projects. Like you I moved around often as a kid and I think having a garden also gives me a sense of stability and permanence.

Robert,

You started caring for roses very young, no wonder your garden looks so nice. When I was a kid I started watering all the plants around our townhouse complex. The landlord was impressed and gave me 75 cents for the task, which seemed like a whole ton of money back then, especially to a kid. Mom found out and demanded I should only get 25 cents. That’s a 66 percent pay cut at my first job, gee, thanks Mom!

Sheila

Dad stealing rosebuds from a little girl is too funny. You should have made your best sad wuzrobbed girl boo-boo face.

Kristine,

I remember those plantable J&P boxes fondly, going to the nursery each spring and seeing those new varieities . Who knew you’d have a career at J&P!

BMG

I’m glad you can garden no-spray with the newer roses, plus you have the amazing blue ridge mountains nearby. I grew up in MD and love the mountains and Shenandoah Valley.

Catspa

Wonderful that some of your plants are actually handed down through the generations and now thriving in your garden.

Ang

Terrific that you are continuing your grandmother’s legacy, I bet she would be so proud of you.

Jim,

That’s an amazing looking first rose, I still think Precious Platinum has one of the richest red coloring

Oh, and folks from Europe/UK must’ve had a first rose at some point in their lives . They are welcome to post here too! (hint, hint).

You’re so right, Ben. It’s mighty nice to get back to roses again. Mighty nice.

Love all the stories! Mine is a very funny one. Five years ago, we moved to a newly built home. Our house has a busy walking path, and no plant could survive in one particular spot loved by the dogs. Being a city girl, I never even thought about growing roses, but for some inexplicable reason, I decided to buy a rose from Home Depot and planted it there without any hope.

You can imagine my surprise when the "No Name" rose not only survived but started to bloom with huge flowers. Just recently, Diane helped me recognize that the rose is Fragrant Cloud!! It's still one of the best roses in my garden.

Great story, Elena, roses are really tough plants. I think over the years, Fragrant Cloud might be my best variety, huge flushes of big, intensely fragrant blooms all season, year after year.

As for dog pee, some plants like society garlic are super resistant, others like boxwood are very sensitive. As I walk to the dog park it’s easy to tell which is which!

These two lobelia plants looked the same last week, until my chihuahua decided the plant on the left was his shiny blue new toilet.

And here is a pic of the culprit, Elon aka the Lobelia Lobotomizer. He is a Stuffie Stealer too, you have been warned! Does he feel guilty? Nah, he will demand a belly rub, a game of fetch, a nap and some treats!

I rented a house across the street from a public rose garden, and it turned out the house had its own neglected rose garden too! I can't remember what all roses I discovered there, but I recall Blaze, Peace, Mr. Lincoln, Honor - a true 1960s-1980s era garden.

Elon, you stinker

Elf, I think I would love to live across the street from a public rose garden, I’d visit every day. I still grow Peace and Honor, and think they are wonderful.

It definitely was a nice place to live! And some nice classic roses too :-)

Ben, OMG, Elon has a good taste!!

My Fragrant Cloud has at least 6 waves, just love this rose!

My mother had roses and Mr Lincoln was my favorite. In college I bought a Little Artist. I didn’t have it long but I still remember it. One of the signs that I was developing a serious rose addiction was when I realized I could remember where I first ”met” a rose!

Good as Gold. I saw it at Pikes with a large luscious bloom over five years ago, but at that time I was convinced it was not possible to grow roses in the South.

A sales person convinced me I was wrong. I took it home and the rest was history. Half a decade later this one is not doing so well - a bit stunted this season, but it's fighting tree roots. I may change its location soon.

My family had 2 'Blaze' roses, but they were not mine. My first rose was 'Goldilocks' for like $1 body bag. I thought it was ugly. I was a teenager. Then I saw a 5G rose for sale that looked so dynamic I thought it was unreal. So I bought it. I had no idea it was its first year in commerce. That rose was 'American Honor'. Its a really good rose with an ideal plant habit for its class. I wish I still had it.

One of my earliest memories is choosing these roses from a local nursery and planting them with my mom. It's what kick-started my journey with roses! I don't know what varieties they are, but here are some pictures of them this spring. I almost thought I lost one last summer but it came back over the winter and pushed out two big, humongous blooms larger than my hand on what was left of a once large plant.

I've loved hearing all these stories. Mine is modest and probably dull.

My parents were not great gardeners, but I grew up in an area with a lot of natural beauty, and felt it. I always loved trees and gardens. My mom occasionally tried a modern rose here or there in the yard: I remember them affectionately, but in north Florida they were doomed. I grew things like coleus as a kid under the aegis of our housekeeper, who was a dedicated gardener, but didn't catch the bug until I was about thirty. Then, a few years later, I bought my first house, in Washington state. It had a rose growing by the front door, and, the first year it bloomed, I thought a miracle had occurred. It turned out to be 'Mme. Plantier'. My older sister was a lifetime gardener and experienced horticulturalist. She egged me on from the start, offering me information, plants, and encouragement; among other things, she was a fan of old roses, and between her and 'Mme. Plantier', I set off on that path and have never left it. I had a second garden in Italy in the two years we lived in Brescia, courtesy of my brother-in-law who provided space and funding; then we moved to the farm and here I am. I don't know how many roses I have--two or three hundred?--the climate is changing, almost certainly not for the better as far as roses (and almost everything else) are concerned--I will be battling our poor, heavy, thin soil as long as I live and can work. I really want to develop areas where I can plant more Teas. I've had enough success, though, to keep me generally happy, and keep me going.

The yard at the moment is heavy with roses, with one pergola sustaining 'Souv. de Mme. Leonie Viennot' (of commerce), who has her own pergola but has long since escaped off it--she's an enormous rose that really ought to be climbing an oak tree--'Cl. Papa Gontier' (this is what it was sold to me as, but it doesn't look like 'Papa Gontier', so I'm suspicious), and 'Crépuscule'; and off to the side, R. moschata, which was given its own moderate structure to keep it off our heads but which has extended beyond it to join the others. They're all huge. I have more or less given up on trying to control them, and am going to wait until I can see a reason to do so. Mine is a deeply un-Italian garden: no tidiness, little grass, a general air of wildness. I love it.

What a wonderful thread! So nice to read everyone's stories. Thank you BenT for starting it!

When I was around 9 years old, my dad went on a work trip to Bulgaria and brought me back a tiny vial of pure rose oil. I treasured it and would sniff it before going to bed and dream of the fragrant fields of pink roses he'd told me about.

My mom did grow a couple of roses in the garden, but they weren't fragrant and I was never interested in them. So as a kid I had this notion that fragrant roses were something exotic and unattainable that only existed in Bulgaria.

It was only a few years ago that I started adding roses to my own garden, first a drugstore mini that was gifted to me, then Iceberg just because it was described as a tough plant. Only later did I randomly happen to notice a bunch of Austins in bloom at my local garden center... The range of scents blew me away, from fruity to myrrh to old rose. I went home with Heritage, Teasing Georgia, Wild Edric and Strawberry Hill.

I added Autumn Damask to my garden shortly afterwards, and when it bloomed I found that elusive scent from my childhood again. The circle was complete, but the rose journey had just begun!

My story is quite simple. Before moving to Seattle, I never even planted a single plant, let alone roses. My mother only grew some potted plants on the balcony of the condo, and watering them in the summer was really annoying. About six years ago, out of the blue I became curious about the varieties of the two fragrant roses came with the house, so I started searching online for information and found out that they were New Dawn and Etoile de Hollande, Cl.. I also discovered that roses are one of the very few shrubs that can bloom repeatedly, which made me want to try growing them in the ground. Our front and back yards were originally boring lawns and boxwood hedges, and DH was tired of mowing and watering the grass every week. In 2019, we decided to redo the yards. We removed all the lawn, boxwood, tons of Invasive plants (still fighting with Himalayan blackberries, morning glory, Sweet Autumn Clematis, Bermuda grass, etc. now), installed pavers, retaining wall, a irrigation system, and also built a small deck on the slope. From then on I walked on a road of no return. LOL. I now have about 200 roses (in fact I stopped counting over 150) and many native plants. Since our garden is small and shady, I'm always hunting for dry shade and dwarf versions/alpine plants, so there are also some rare plants here. I found that I love gardening, getting my hands into the soil, enjoying abundant colors in the garden, and even admiring the insects no matter they're bad or good. It’s such a joy to find a new hobby in retirement. It's almost like a second life.

New Dawn

Étoile de Hollande, Cl.

2017 backyard with our chihuahua Beta and a huge black walnut tree in the back.

Backyard 2023

If I had given up on failures, I probably wouldn't be writing this...

After moving to Watford (UK) I wanted plants to keep me company during the pandemic.. I had successfully grown lots of indoor plants.. but something was missing.. possibly the fragrance and colour... I saw 'Millie' (Mum in a Million) potted at a GC and got that home.. did not know much about roses other than they need proper sunlight.. but I was trying to grow them indoors (stupid me right).. needless to say, the rose did not thrive and possibly sat in a wet container and died.. it should have stopped there.. but little did I know that I had been bitten.. I think, it's like having an allergic (anaphylactic) reaction.. once you are exposed, it waits for the right trigger to cascade into a major reaction..

That trigger came in the form of 'Double Delight'.. when I can afford only one rose, why not go for the famous one. I did not have much hopes for it.. but then there it was, my first rose bloom in a long time.. that too I managed to make it bloom indoors, under grow light.. I remember feeling so proud of myself that day.. being a small single room apartment, the blooms were enough to perfume the room.. and that's how it all started.......

Without sunlight, the blooms remained creamy yellow..

the same rose when planted outdoors...

Feiy, Your story is fantastic and I love the before and after pictures. Thanks for posting them!

Some of my earliest memories are of red roses in our garden. The minute I moved into my first own house I planted an Ena Harkness - for scent and colour. I grew and loved it for ten years until it got every kind of ill (mostly from my meddling). It was my "first go" at a rose and I butchered it (as an over-pruner). All my first roses were simliar red climbers with strong scent. I now have around 35 (still mostly climbers, as I have a small garden). Of those, many are doubles or triples or the same kind that work well for the plot. (I'm not a 'collector').

@Feiy (PNWZ8b/9a) I'm amazed you have managed to grow Etoile on an obelik. My gets to about six metres. How do you manage it? Half of the second pic is an Etoile (towards the back).

--

Ena

--

A view of red climbers.

Rose de Rescht and Belle Isis.

I know I have told my story before on here, probably too many times. So, I will keep it brief. The first rose I had was not one, but over 100 roses. When my DH and I got married 35 years ago, we moved into a house which had originally belonged to his great grandparents, who were immigrants in the late 1870s from Germany. In 1905 they bought what is now our house, and started to garden here. Grapes (with a grape arbor), fruit trees, flowers, and LOTS of roses, formal paths, etc. became part of what had been a "greenfield" lot. My DH's grandfather bought the property from them after he grew up and got married, then my DH's parents bought the property from my DH's grandparents after they retired, and eventually my DH and I bought it from his parents. This all took about 84 years, and 35 more years have gone by since then, making a total of almost 120 years, during all of which the garden has been beloved and enhanced by each of the 4 generations.

My personal journey growing roses started out with disbelief (I knew NOTHING about plants, let alone roses) as the first Spring came around when we lived here, and suddenly roses were appearing on the top of several tall trees, on top of the garage, all over fences, and one massive 40 ft long thing I thought was just a huge hedge covered itself in 3 different kinds of rose blooms (it was really 4 enormous antique rose bushes growing in a row). I was describing this startling explosion of bloom to a friend of mine, and she said "You have old roses. I will send you a book." So, she sent me "in Search of Old Roses", and I read it and was entranced. I then (getting his name from that book) bought every rose book I could find by Graham Thomas, who was a poet, as well as a rose grower and expert. So, I was hooked, and spent several decades trying to identify my treasures, (and add more, of course), and all of them have now been identified except one or two.

Le Vesuve was the one I was trying the hardest to identify at the beginning, and Cass Bernstien came by one day and took photos, and told me who several of them were. Here is her photo of our old Le vesuve, taken in the mid 1990s:

Jackie

This is such a great question! Thanks, Ben for starting the discussion. And my sympathies to Emmie and those who've lost children. I agree -- 2 years is so very recent. I planted a Wollerton Old Hall two years ago, but put it on a slope, quite shaded. Didn't do much. I moved it in January and it is taking off, so now I worry it's too close to the street and a big shrub (ceanothus - more like a small tree) and will have to move it again. I'm looking forward to the flowers, though. I don't want to get to weirdly symbolic, but I think a myrhh scented rose seems appropriate for the memory of someone?

I look back at my "rose roots" and wish I had a do-over! My grandmother grew roses, and I remember her walking me through her garden a couple of times and showing me what she was happy with. I was probably 13-15 years old and just impatient and an idiot. I so wish I could go back in time and stroll with my grandmother and learn the names of her roses and hear her stories about how and why she came to love them. The only plant name I remember from those short tours is her "Dusty Miller" plants. Sheesh. My dad gardened a lot -- varied depending on the house we were in at the time -- grew some roses. Always had to have his tomatoes and peppers.

I think I resented gardening, as my job was picking snails and pulling weeds. Then I made some money as a teen doing "yard work" -- which was really mowing and raking. Not fun.

Then when I was in graduate school somehow I got a Jackson & Perkins rose catalogue in the mail. And at the time, I was enamored with the Victoria magazine and some of the Crabtree & Evelyn products (the classic scents - that I still miss). So I think all of these things at the same time made me think that I needed roses. So I bought some from J&P and it's been a love affair ever since. One of the first was Sheer Bliss -- which is lovely and such a heavenly scent. I finally got a new one of those from Heirloom last year, so this will be year 2 in the garden and I can't wait. I also grew Sterling Silver and Lagerfeld and Mr. Lincoln and climbing Cecile Bruner. I think for health and form and color and fragrance -- my favorite was Sheer Bliss. We lived in an apartment back then, but the managers let me garden in areas that were vacant -- there were some geraniums and weeds, but that was it. Then we moved to another apartment, and I tried to move some in pots, but they were in a very hot, shaded patio area (all I had), and none really survived. At my current house, I have a small area, but now have 100 roses. I swore I would never do this, but now I have about 15 in pots because I literally can't fit in any more roses.

Jacqueline -- thanks for telling your story again. What a wonderful legacy.

Thanks again, Ben. Nice to remember what got us started!

mmmm12COzone5, thank you. I also enjoy hearing everyone's stories!

Fire zone 8, north London, UK, I'm honestly not sure. It's possible that my Etoile is a taller shrub version. We removed the original mother plant during the renovation and the one in the photo came from a sucker. I've heard that only the climbing version is prone to suckers. Does yours do the same? Mine basically only blooms in spring, and I have only seen one flower blooming in fall in the past three years. I have another one on the shady slope about 16 feet tall, but I don't know if it stretches for more sunlight.

I used to say I hated roses!

I associated them with municipal plantings of ugly, gnarly, bare-legged, diseased and neglected hybrid tea lollipops. Imagine serried rows along roadsides or widely spaced on otherwise bare roundabouts, not a companion plant in sight..

So I was extremely reluctant to comply when my DH said she would love some red roses for our then new garden, some eight years ago. We had inherited two very old and ugly HT’s, which had only confirmed my prejudices. One of the first things I did was plot their demise, so I was damned if I was going to replace them with more of the bloody same!!

However, I came across some potted David Austin roses in a small local nursery. This turned out to be a freak, never to be repeated event for this nursery, but the duly purchased L.D. Braithwaite (and the subsequent gift of Darcy Bussell from some guests) became the seed of my future obsession. A whole new world was opened up to me by this one rose!

LDB was never the greatest DA and has since been relegated to her office garden, where most roses go to commence their final journey. Nevertheless, I will always have a fondness for it because of the role it played in my rose story:

@Feiy (PNWZ8b/9a) I didn't know there was a shrub version of Etoile. I rarely get basal shooting on any rose and I have never had a sucker, but all my roses are squeezed into small crannies, having to fight it out, so maybe they have no mind to sucker or shoot. Now my Etoiles are pretty established (over about five years) they repeat well through the year. I wonder if what you have is an Etoile, or if the nature of the original can be altered according to how it's managed.

I am not a lifelong gardener - I am almost a cliche in that I came to gardening fairly late, when my offspring were adolescent and I could have a garden which was more than stomped earth and a random collection of old bikes, footballs, dog balls. When one of the offspring decided to 'tidy up' the (ahem) 'garden', we rushed off to buy a coupla plants, one of which was 'Honorine de Jobart' japanese anemone (which I still have in the garden after. 25 or so years..and the other was Madame Gregoire Staechelin. While I adored Madame G, it was the later acquisition of r.hugonis which started me on a path I have rarely stepped off - one bounded by briars, eglantines, woodbine and musk rose- a romantic intersection of gardening, literature and the deep green lushness of the English countryside (but without pig-farms, rural deprivation, industrial agriculture etc). A ridiculous, highly improbable fantasy of lush wilderness, cow parsley, bluebells, campions and especially, the simple 5 petalled beauty of apple blossom, dogroses and primroses.

Back when I was growing up in Pennsylvania a very long time ago, I mail ordered half a dozen roses from Will Tillotson's nursery Roses of Yesterday and Today. That garden is long gone, and I forget what most of the roses were, but they included the Apothecary Rose, Rosa gallica. So I will say that it was my first rose. It would certainly be accurate to say that it is the first rose I actually remember getting.

Ten years ago I cam home with three body bags from Home Depot: Gold Medal, Granada, and Double Delight. DD died within two weeks, but the other two took off like crazy. Then I started with Austins: three Tamoras, Molyneux, three Queen of Sweden’s

Continuing: 3 QoS, 2 Alnwicks, a Falstaff, and others I can’t remember… in 2015 my son built a raised bed for me and I planted my first tea, Marie van Houtte, which grew to be 6x6 in two years. Teas that followed were Dr. Grill and General Schablikine, and

The Alnwick Rose! I always avoided roses before discovering the DA roses at a local nursery, my idea of roses were the old sickly hybrid teas my mom grew in the shade at our house growing up that rarely bloomed

I still have the teas. Oklahoma was a favorite of mine, so rich, so lush, so fragrant. Also had Don Juan, George Burns, Julia Child, Tranquillity, Marilyn Monroe - sigh. We moved in 2018, taking only the teas and the two Austins, Munstead and Darcey Bussell. Also brought my three Sexy Rexys.
Even though my lot here is tiny, I’ve done what I could. Climbers: Raspberry Cream Twirl, Lavender Crush, three Renaes. Moonstone, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Love Song do well here, as do minis and minifloras. I sp’d the Sexy Rexys, replacing them with Bolero and Full Sail. Dream Come True is fantastic. Memorial Day is probably my current favorite. I was gifted a Princess Alexandra of Kent, and I do like it although it’s not a frequent bloomer. Can’t end this without mentioning Life of the Party. What a winner!

My Lady Hillingdon is in its second year - she didn’t do much in 2023,but I have high hopes, and have given her a lot of room. I love teas, and would grow more if I had space for them,

My dad grew roses back in Staten Island. Also vegetables and, yes, figs, in zone 7. I inherited the gene.
I do miss my big yard and the citrus trees - Valencia orange and lemon - but as life goes on, I’m kinda-sorta happy I don’t have that much to do anymore. Although I have no room (famous last words), I have two new polyanthas from Burling, in pots right now, and a Fragrant Plum that will have to go in the
ground sometime.

Naturally I’m looking forward to Otto and Sons Rose Days this month, and will probably not walk out of there empty-handed. Maybe an apricot this year.