I've decided on which roses I am ordering. I've read and thought about and reconsidered and now I've settled and I am moving on until next spring, which I'm sure I'll have decided on a few more. Let me tell you, diving headfirst into the world of rose growing is quite an adventure. There are something like 100,000 varieties, there are hot debates about spraying for disease vs. not within the rose growing community along with differences in opinion on original root or grafted root and if grafted then with what - multiflora, Dr. Huey, fortuniana and so on. There are some roses that are gorgeous but have fallen out of popularity and are now almost impossible to find (which sort of makes them even more desirable for some reason!) and others that are not so great, in my opinion, and can still be found in late October at the local big box home improvement store. It seems most people want pink and easy and going a little farther than that makes the experience all the more interesting for me as a gardener.

I've discovered that I have very little interest in pink and red roses, I much, much, much prefer yellows and apricots and some showy whites. The one exception is the Christopher Marlowe which is supposed to be an incredibly watermelon/salmon/orangey-pink that sounds very interesting and has certainly caught my eye. I've decided to order all my roses bare root from a Canadian seller, Pickering Nurseries, who graft onto muliflora root stock. This rose seller is really highly reputed in the online community so I am ready to give them a go.

For now the front beds will receive Christopher Marlowe by David Austin and OSO Easy's HoneyBun by Proven Winners. Both are low, small growers which will give a nice pop to the front of my house. I am going with the HoneyBun because I am new to growing roses and I want to see if a rose bred particularly to be disease resistant really is compared to the showier, more finicky roses I seem to prefer (from images).

Next, we will be creating another bed along the south side of our house which will extend the existing front bed island down the side towards our garden boxes. What is most exciting about this bed is that my husband has no idea it is going to be created! He really thought we were done with landscaping this fall aside from mulching and I know he is going to be just thrilled to discover yet more sod needs to be removed and more holes need to be dug and more compost needs to be liberally dumped into the area - creating these kinds of garden beds are really his favorite way to spend the weekend . In this bed I will stagger from largest to smallest four rose varieties. First and biggest is Tamora, followed by Charlotte, followed by Crocus Rose and finishing up the bed is the short, creeping Pillow Fight. I really, really want to try Bouquet Parfait but it is darned hard to find and it has a blush of pink instead of yellow. Pillow Fight will no longer be available for purchase after 2010 as Weeks is pulling it from the market so that fact along with it's yellow centers pushed it into the cart rather than me taking the time to chase down Bouquet Parfait.

We removed a medium sized pine tree last weekend that was going to eventually get too big for where it was planted near our neighbor's much larger cryptomeria (the landscapers just put it in based on the plan for the house right before we closed rather than realizing that longterm it would never work out, ridiculous) and now there is a nice bare spot begging for a medium sized shrub. I will be putting in Crown Princess Margereta there, another David Austin variety because she packs a lot of punch with her color and she is almost thornless, which is a plus since she will be close to where children are playing. It was really hard choosing her, the lack of thorns being the most important feature. I was loving Grace, and Sweet Juliet as well.

Moving back to the front of my house, there is a wall on the right side of my front bed that is begging for a climber, and I am going to give Maigold by Korbes a try. It is a gorgeous peachy/yellow rose that is supposed to be a prolific bloomer and I think I can train it to climb. 5-6 feet or so feet to give a nice splash of color.

If we decide to move forward with a patio in spring then I will probably order Grace and Lady Emma Hamilton to go in huge pots to add some color to the space. Or maybe not. We'll see what has caught my fancy by then.

A couple pics to show where roses will be planted.

This long stretch behind the laurel and in front of the veggie beds will be a dedicated rose bed, it gets full sun all day until around 4 p.m.

This interior wall will be where Maigold is planted. Let's hope she likes it here! It also gets full sun from sunrise until about 3 p.m. so she should be fine.


-Jess