Melissa that all sounds wonderful I really share with you in the joy of all the work you have accomplished and all the hopefulness of the new plants you have brought home. I am really so envious of Paula that she gets to come to your garden. Someday I will be able to also.
Here I have finished with spreading compost. I'm still working on the straw. I am ridiculously excited about planting new plants and roses and the white California poppy seeds I planted are sprouting. Somehow the anticipation of now is almost better than the fruition later.

Melissa - I really love reading about your garden.
Laura

Pam,
I think our two gardens arise from a common place inside us, and we feel the same passion for our our creations. I hope we'll see each other's gardens one day.

Laura: thank you! That's what everyone who writes wants to hear.

Sherry,
As far as we're concerned, it's perfectly feasible: we have a guest room and a standing invitation to come visit, and we live in a beautiful area, little known to tourists. So you may keep that in mind as you weigh the possibilities of a trip to Italy.
As Henry Mitchell wrote, flowers, wonderful as they are, are not what gardening is about; rather it's watching the growth of the garden in spring, the splendor of the plants' maturity, and their slow retirement in fall. The roses are incredibly lovely in their delicate new foliage with the daffodils in bloom at their feet: who could ask for more? I love the woods below the shade garden, still bare at this time, and the woodland bulbs in certain lucky locations. For me at these times this is the most beautiful place in the world.
My husband has to sit through a lot of rhapsodizing as well. It's the common fate of gardeners' spouses.

When I wrote this message I forgot one of the reasons I originally wanted to write it, which is, that we now have DIRT!!!!
Our neighbors have been a constructing a new, large cow barn as part of a significant expansion of their dairy operation. On the whole this is a good thing for us, as well as for the cows, as they'll move out of the middle of our little settlement of houses and barns, resulting in a cleaner and neater environment for the humans and more sanitary conditions for the beasts. Anyway, it has been necessary to excavate for the building and dump trucks have been hauling away great loads of perfectly good soil, a product of which we are in chronically short supply, all our acres notwithstanding. Of course we can buy topsoil, but having it hauled in is an expensive business. So my husband flagged down one of the dumptruck drivers and, for twenty euros, got him to dump one load in our parking area and another in our field by the side of the road. This is GREAT. Now we can fill in low spots, make up potting soil, and refill the propagating beds after we've dug up the rooted cuttings. We're very happy about our pile of soil!

Melissa

Melissa, Yes, Playing in the dirt is a most primal sort of therapy isn't it? And to have it sanctioned as 'fixing the garden' provides wonderful dreams of the future too.

I love to read your posts also. Pictures?

Thanks, Karen

melissa, Congratulations on your new top soil.There is nothing more precious.
Your fantasy, cloud canopy sounds beautiful. I am sure it will become a reality. The pink montana clematis with the banksia roses will be gorgeous.
I would love to know, what the other clematis you bought are and which roses you are going to plant them with.
Daisy

From time to time my garden overwhelms me. This is such a time; chores I've hired out in the past (spreading mulch) I'm doing myself this year. It is encouraging to hear that you are making such excellent progress. I find it inspirational.

Rosefolly

Melissa,

I always read your postings, I'm a fan of your garden photos and descriptions, though I don't know you personally. If you don't mind me asking, how did you come to live in Italy?
I rambled through Italy and fell in love with Tuscany and Venice long before I was interested in roses, and to grow roses in Italy seems as marvelous as gilding a magnificent lily, so to speak.
Thanks for sharing your garden with us,
Luxrosa

Karen, thanks for the kind words! About pictures, one of my dreams is to have someone who loves to take photographs and doesn't fear Photobucket come pay a visit with camera in hand. I rather dislike taking pictures, and dread the chore of organizing them on the computer and uploading them. Wish there were someone else to do it.

Daisy, all true gardeners love dirt!! I hope your new garden is going well! As far as the flower cloud canopy is concerned, I think it may work, if I pay attention. There are always a thousand things to do here.

Paula, yes, we make progress, but yes, we're always behind! I always have far more to do than I have time and energy for; the best I can do is try to design a garden that won't fall apart if it experiences periods of neglect. I know I have a summer of weeding ahead of me. And the shade garden never gets all the time it requires. Don't let your garden become a source of distress for you: that's not what it's for.

Luxrosa, I think I told this story in a post I wrote last year about the farm. But I don't mind telling it again. I'm glad you like what I write.

My husband is an Italian native, born and raised here, though he lived most of his adult life in the U.S., which is where we met. He's older than me; when he reached retirement age and his youngest child from his first marriage turned eighteen, we moved to Italy for what was meant to be a two year stay, a working vacation as his brother-in-law gave him a job. However, during our first year here we impulsively bought a farm, and at the end of our two years here we realized we had to choose to live full time in on of our two countries, and for a variety of reasons we chose Italy.
Living in Italy is considerably less romantic than being here on vacation, since daily life with its burdens and annoyances is almost always less romantic than wandering free as the wind. There have been times when I've been very unhappy here. However, the longer I've lived here the more I've come to feel part of the community; and living in a foreign culture is very stimulating: I recommend it highly! And this is a great place both to live and to grow roses. We're very fortunate.

Melissa

Melissa I love reading what you write about your garden too. Your garden is beautiful and you really enjoy it, and there's nothing more wonderful than that.

I love the idea of Clematis Montana (one that I also covet when I see pictures) with Lady Banks. What a lovely combination that would be!

It's true, good dirt and mulch are a gardener's favorite things!