This is the right half of the bed. You can see Eglantyne in the top right corner looking much healthier. For the record, all plants are own-root and purchased from Chamblee's this year. Jude and Heritage are two year old plants, Eglantyne is one year old.

This is the left side of the bed. Heritage is throwing out an enormous arm, getting ready to arch and climb.

Looks very neat and tidy! Great job on the bed. Mine are only barely started, but I did start moving pots to their tentative planting areas. Have any extra mulch you don't mind sending to NJ?

Haha.

:-)

~Christopher

Hi Josh: Looks so nice & organized ... your roses are very healthy. I like my roses that way: compact in my zone 5a. Your Heritage rose has dark green leaves, just perfect ... you have the right soil pH for roses.

At my high pH of 7.7, I have to put sulfur on Nahema (child of Heritage) otherwise it's chlorotic and stunt. Eglantyne gave me hell the 1st year. Now in its second year it blooms much better when given gypsum and sulfate of potash, right when I prune a done-flush.

Rosie in the English Roses Forum taught me that: if Austins are stingy, give it potassium. Some Austins have higher demand for potassium than others. Radio Times is an example, I planted it with at least 30 banana peels in the hole ... with 40+ blooms in spring flush. NPK of banana peels is 0-3-42, and no salt like fertilizers !!

They look great Josh. I forget if you said what you were doing to fertilize them. It must be just the right thing.

Josh, if ever you're in Italy..... you can come and help me with my flowerbeds??
Your roses look SO happy.

Yes, Josh, and if you're ever in southern California maybe you could have a little talk with my roses. The purple plant in the middle (lavender?), looks lovely too. That color to me is just the best complement to soft-colored roses. I wish now that I'd chosen repeat-flowering irises only in that color. Speaking of which, is that something you've ever considered? I've had mine flower at the oddest times, November, December, February. Two of them are flowering right now for that matter. Their spiky foliage is a great foil for the rounded bushy shapes of the roses. Sorry, I'm rambling on with unsolicited advice. When I see bare ground I immediately want to overfill it with odds and ends which then have to be taken out when the roses get bigger and bigger.

Ingrid

Chris,

I actually need a little mulch myself to finish off some front beds! I'm happy to share what's left over though.

Annalyssa,

I would be happy to help if I could! I will actually be living in Germany next summer for a few months.

Ingrid,

I am hopeless with bulbs. We put calls lilies in the ground years back and they never bloom because I can't get them to. They just put up leaves and no blooms. I am also having to resist the urge to want to fill in the spaces in the bed. But I keep reassuring myself that come fall. I will begin propagating the lavender and the Euphorbia so that next spring I will have a bed full of purple, white, and roses. I also would be perfectly happy to help you with anything you need in your garden, alas, I am too far to do so.