@newbie77 ..that's a fun story actually and shows how you knew you really needed that garden... and it's not easy in London, well nowhere these days but we had to move out into the sticks to get a garden there..
I have always gardened but I never grew roses because I thought that they would be too much trouble. We moved to a house a big garden and OH built a pergola so I needed something to grow up it. Long John Silver was so successful that I brought more climbers for other places but still resisted all other types. We have now moved to a house with a smaller garden and have again planted climbers but reading this thread and seeing all the wonderful pictures of mixed planting has inspired me to try mixing them in the borders, I haven't yet reached obsession but there are so many lovely plants out there. (I have started taking cuttings even though I don't have any idea where they would go if successful, top of the slippery slope) I haven't yet had the heart to throw away anything that doesn't work but there are a couple that we inherited that may have to go.
I had little interest in gardening, apart from a few pots on a roof terrace and a veg plot on some land we owned, until I moved here five years ago and had all this space on my doorstep to play with. Like many, I disliked roses, associating them with the ugly bare sticks and formal blooms of HT’s in municipal planting. One of my earliest purchases was a DA red shrub rose from a local nursery (think they had them as an experiment for one season), grudgingly purchased for my OH. That was it. I became totally obsessed with gardening and roses in particular. So even though some DA roses don’t do so well here, as I subsequently discovered, it was one of his that set me off.
Re fresh manure and roses, of course you are both right @Marlorena and @Mr. Vine Eye, I was thinking more of perennials re the original helianthemum discussion! Still, I always use aged as the roses are surrounded with drought-tolerant perennials that I suspect wouldn’t like it near their emerging, tender young shoots.
I’m still trying to get hold of Salita and Souvenir de Marcel Proust. A German nursery had both, then sold out of SdMP as I was about to order, then they had problems with my rural address as their system couldn’t accept one without a street name and house number. After some very slow email correspondence, they still can’t tell me what the postage is or if they can send it at all, so I might have to give up on those until next season.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
I think this might be the 10 year anniversary of me starting to garden, when I moved into a rental property with a small yard which I decorated with potted annuals.
Since having my own house I have experimented with all kinds of plants to see what I liked and what liked my gardening style and garden conditions.
I've evolved over the years and some plants I didn't like before or found a bit boring (including geranium phaeum, ferns and heavily petalled roses) now take up a substantial amount of my garden.
My current special interests/garden stalwarts in addition to roses are daffs (I love daffs ), camassia, ferns, persicaria and geranium phaeum. They all seem to be okay with the dank clagginess in winter and the rock hard soil in summer.
Enjoying everyone's stories. I've always been interested in plants, worked in a botanical garden while studying for a horticulture degree, many moons ago...I was in charge of the Mediterranean garden but I always coveted the English garden. My own gardening style has always been cottage garden influenced, with old fashioned roses being my favourite. I also never liked hybrid teas because you would always see them planted in huge amounts by themselves with just bare soil and it always looked rather blah to me. I enjoy HT's now as cut flowers, in pots, or planted in amongst things. You can get some fabulously large, long lasting blooms from them.
I also enjoy growing herbs, and this year I'd like to grow some different types of soft fruit. We have a wild blackberry that I've been training along the far edge of the front garden fence that makes nice berries, a favourite of our Labrador but I think I need to start pinching them too
I've marked on my Google maps the exact location of a blackberry plant. We encountered it on a walk one day and they were the most delicious black berries we've ever tasted!
On the west coast of Canada, where I used to live, they would use fresh manure on all the communal beds in parks etc and residents would commonly use it on their front garden beds, and boy, oh boy, did you know about it. Not a nice horsey smell either. Enough to knock me off my bike.
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..that's a fun story actually and shows how you knew you really needed that garden... and it's not easy in London, well nowhere these days but we had to move out into the sticks to get a garden there..
I haven't yet had the heart to throw away anything that doesn't work but there are a couple that we inherited that may have to go.
Re fresh manure and roses, of course you are both right @Marlorena and @Mr. Vine Eye, I was thinking more of perennials re the original helianthemum discussion! Still, I always use aged as the roses are surrounded with drought-tolerant perennials that I suspect wouldn’t like it near their emerging, tender young shoots.
@Victoria Sponge, nice cheery rose to look forward to!
I’m still trying to get hold of Salita and Souvenir de Marcel Proust. A German nursery had both, then sold out of SdMP as I was about to order, then they had problems with my rural address as their system couldn’t accept one without a street name and house number. After some very slow email correspondence, they still can’t tell me what the postage is or if they can send it at all, so I might have to give up on those until next season.
I think this might be the 10 year anniversary of me starting to garden, when I moved into a rental property with a small yard which I decorated with potted annuals.
Since having my own house I have experimented with all kinds of plants to see what I liked and what liked my gardening style and garden conditions.
I've evolved over the years and some plants I didn't like before or found a bit boring (including geranium phaeum, ferns and heavily petalled roses) now take up a substantial amount of my garden.
My current special interests/garden stalwarts in addition to roses are daffs (I love daffs
I also enjoy growing herbs, and this year I'd like to grow some different types of soft fruit. We have a wild blackberry that I've been training along the far edge of the front garden fence that makes nice berries, a favourite of our Labrador but I think I need to start pinching them too
Marking out and digging long hot border under the existing stone terrace wall, back garden:
Which a year or two later looked like this:
Became a new dining terrace/seating area and the oranges and lemons border:
When I finally finish the front rose border I’ll post some before and after pics!