We had a friend in the Secret Service (now retired) and several years ago she took us on a semi-private tour of the gardens. If you are in the neighborhood, I second Suero's comment-go! I would love to see the vegetable garden and beehives! Thanks for the pictures!

Thank you, Darren. I really enjoyed the tour, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate the labels. A visual experience uninterrupted by guessing games. Just pure enjoyment. Your garden is stunning! Absolutely every rose (and every other plant) was a delight, but like Ingrid, I was especially and repeatedly bewitched by Emily Bronte. What lovely rose! I hope it stays I commerce for awhile. Carol

I live near Franklin and I vote for Cheekwood! Although I admit it has been awhile since I've been to the gardens at The Hermitage. I will warn you though that the end of April is usually juuuuuuust at the beginning of rose blooming here. Cheekwood would be hedging your bets because it will be lovely regardless if the roses are doing a show yet or not. So far we are warming up nicely so hopefully you'll have something to see. Both Cheekwood and the Hermitage will be slightly out of your way between the two areas--Hendersonville is north of town, Franklin to the south--and they would both be a 20 minute jog. If you are really tight for time try Carnton Plantation/Mansion in Franklin. They've done tremendous work over the last few years renovating their historic garden and I believe it may have some old roses--but the gardens aren't really about roses. Carnton I believe also has the largest private cemetery in the U.S. and it was central to the Battle of Franklin in the Civil War. (Mrs. McGavock took it upon herself to bury the dead on her property after the battle. ) So lots and lots of history and it's about 5 minutes from the square in downtown Franklin, Gardens with a few roses, a cemetery and convienent!!

The beauty of it is you can do whatever you like. Try one thing, morph to another, create your own style etc. I put in our rose garden as an experiment. Had a bed that was overgrown with trees and large bushes. So thick you couldn't walk in it. There were rocks in the base but you couldn't see them anymore as it was so over grown. We pondered what to do with it and decided to try roses. They worked out spectacularly. If I'd known they would do so well I would have probably done more of a formal style. But I am very happy with what we got. The plants are all healthy and put on a nice display without much work. Sometimes there is a rose that I don't like for whatever reason and it gets given away and replaced with another (my husband hates this as he is the one that has to dig it up). We also put roses in various other parts of the yard, some rock, some mulch. For whatever reason they do not do well in mulch in our yard. So we have moved some of them to the rock bed and abandoned the holes. Here was yesterday. Sorry for the picture through the window screen. This was it last June. The idea was that you could walk down a curved path in the middle. The Love Song (small purple rose front and center) was originally a yellow Golden Wings. It got big really fast. After I planted it I saw a mature one at the Denver Botanical Gardens and knew we would have to take it out of that location. Ended up giving it away because the flowers were beautiful but decimated by Japanese Beetles every day so there was no pleasure in it. Sally Holmes which is the white low growing shrub at the center back is the same way (eaten so quickly). But it is failing due to it's persistent lack of obtaining size. I had originally put three of them back there, thinking they would create a wall of white as a back drop to the rose garden and they don't thrive here. We should probably take that out also. Dainty Bess, mid way back on the left is also eaten quite quickly. But it is so pretty I've left it. However I could see putting in something like Moonlight Romantic in it's place.