I don't think it's that difficult, Melissa. Isn't that what many of us have been doing by selecting the roses (and other plants) which are happiest to be where we are, rather than continuing to try to grow penguins in the desert? Those which require much more water than the rest; require chemical intervention where the others don't; won't tolerate the heat or cold, or find the light levels we endure too oppressive, are replaced with those which just keep on keeping on with as much, or as little as the average in the garden.

I was always taught a good manager is one who selects and trains his staff to continue on without him as if he was still present. Isn't it the same with a good gardener? Select those plants which can be properly positioned, properly planted then set to auto pilot so the gardener can actually leave for a while and return to find them still doing their things as if hadn't set foot out of the garden. That's 'submitting to Nature'. Working with her instead of constantly attempting to bend her to YOUR will. Because, as we all will learn, SHE is going to win in the end. Letting Nature teach you, then working in partnership with her provides serenity. Do what you do the way she teaches needs to be done for success and you have much less to be concerned with. Kim

I agree absolutely with Kim: the right plant for the place makes all the difference. But it is more difficult to go with the flow, when the flow is becoming increasingly erratic. For the past four years, my seasons have been completely unpredictable. Last year, I could barely keep up with the watering, it was so dry. This year, root rot is looming. While there have always been the occasional wild swing in weather patterns, overall, the climate in any given region has been consistent. If this changes, if inconsistency becomes the rule of thumb, then a different plant list, one chosen for adaptability, has to be installed.

The big reason I chose to move to VA was The Middle Path. It is cold enough for rugosas and gallicas, warm enough for teas and noisettes. Compared to Santa Fe, there's plenty of water and, once established, the roses need little additional irrigation. The soil is a bit heavy on the clay side, but that can be amended. One look at the verdant hills tells you things do grow here!

But within this Middle Path, the swings are more frequent now. Plants, like other living things, need some overall consistency. We can all absorb the random trauma, but immune systems and growth patterns adjust to types and degrees of stress. If those change constantly, that itself is a stress ad it is difficult for the garden to find an equilibrium.

Cats, i agree with you completely...we left Texas for North Carolina for just the reasons you listed. But i'm still learning which plants, especially roses, have some adaptability. No more hybrid teas, but there are some beautiful other types of roses. Fewer camellias and more crepe myrtles. And so on. Guess we need to be adaptable too!

Oh and Kim, i love that comparison; penguins in the desert!

Not just plants but an entire gardening ethos has had to be ditched. Moving from a sunny, small plot to shady unkempt woodland has required an seachange in attitudes - most notable being a complete surrender to the rhythms of the overwhelming natural world. Where I have been used to bending the garden to my will (and feel no embarrassment saying so since all gardens are a work of artifice), this large woodland requires a sneaky sideways slither to learn its secrets....and thankfully, age, money and time have conspired to stay my hand from the usual slash and burn techniques I employ when embarking on new projects (we all love bulldozers and earth-movers in my family). So, back to the slog of sowing tough natives and hoping to get the planting times right (as irrigation is not happening unless hauled from the stream with buckets). Still, the hardest thing is the enforced limbo where I am still reluctant to leave the ordered and cosy world of home and allotment, for a small, uncomfortable and challenging woodland. Still, we fancied at least one more adventure and are neither going to be fighting wildfires (poor, poor people in Arizona), nor freezing to death in snowdrifts. The worst that can happen is a long enforced period of knitting and reading.....so feel ashamed to whine on about that.
Also, just bought a little propane cooker off ebay so cakes, muffins and pies, in the horsebox, are a definite possibility (we previously just had a hob and tiny grill and have never used a microwave in my life).

Campanula - I think that your attitude is perfect. I look forward to hearing (and hopefully seeing) your Spring bloom - what was there, and of course what you have added. The previous pictures you have posted of the woodland are enchanting.

My DH and I have a small cabin (about 700 sq ft) on 3.5 acres of forest up in the wilds of No Cal - way away from the skiing areas, in a county which has an average of 3 people per acre. It was a "gold rush" boom area, and had a much larger population in 1880 than it does now. The nearest thing you could call a real town (with large stores, etc) is one hour away. Our cabin is "off the grid", but has its own water, sewage, and electricity (courtesy of a propane burning generator). No phone, no TV reception, and no computer (because of no internet reception). It is perched literally on the edge of a "creek" which is about 25 feet wide and 3-10 feet deep. The nearest neighbor is about 3 blocks up the road, but you cannot see any structures or the road from our cabin, as you are facing the creek.

My point is that, after about 4 days up there, I find myself finally really relaxing. I go for about a one hour walk each day, and look at all of the wild flowers (including wild roses & wild rhododendrons & lilies) & trees (including wild dogwoods) which are blooming. I visit the two osprey nests (one is 3 miles down the creek, and the other is 1 mile up the creek) on alternate days. Both nests are occupied, and the next time we go up I am hoping to hear the baby birds chirping in them. The last time we were up there, a bald eagle flew down the creek, about 20 feet in front of our windows. I have not seen river otters up there for 30 years, but the neighbors tell me that they are back, and last week a guest of ours who was staying at our cabin saw one playing in our part of the creek.

I feel much healthier when I am up there, I'm sure my blood pressure goes down after several days, and the pace of life is just so much more human. The neighbors look after each other, and meet at functions like the breakfasts the "Firebelles" (female auxiliary - mostly wives & mothers of the firemen) put on to support the local volunteer fire departments. No one thinks this is "sexist". Everyone reads the weekly local paper for news.

There are occasional wild fires in that county, and if we want to know what is going on we go down to the nearest general store (5 miles down the road). They monitor the fire radios during fires, and can always tell us exactly where it is (because of the topography, we can sometimes see smoke when the actual fire could be 50 miles away).

So, enjoy your woodland and being part of the "real life" of it - I'm sure it will surprise you!

Jackie

Some gardeners enjoy the idea that they are "battling" something or other. It's a personality factor that is adaptive in some occupations but not so much in gardening. I think gardening can teach us to appreciate Buddhist acceptance of what is, Taoist "wise passivity," and Christian humility as stances toward the world.

And patience!

This is not to say we have no goals, or that we accept everything as is, but that we pursue such goals and in such ways as are appropriate to the way things are.

This post was edited by michaelg on Tue, Jul 2, 13 at 10:52

Very well said everyone. First we open ourselves to learn what that rhythm is. Then we learn to accept that rhythm. Sometimes I feel that if I really followed that philosophy that I wouldn't have filled up three acres with roses, that I would have accepted the Oaks and native landscape as my garden.

Pam, there is also that desire for color and beauty and the mystery of new kinds of plants, and that has not hurt your environment in any way, while at the same time satisfying your soul for something it obviously yearned for. You have enough water and seemingly the right soil for your roses to thrive, and you're not poisoning the environment with constant applications of insecticides. Rather, you've created a new source of food for bees and other insects, and a habitat for small creatures to live their lives in your bower of roses. You've embellished and enriched your habitat, not destroyed it; and we here have also gained so much from that.

Ingrid

Melissa, this is a great thread and a great reminder for all of us to look at what conditions we have and who we are, and find ways to create the beauty and mystery Ingrid is talking about within the constraints of both. None of us are as young as we used to be, and wisdom can mean scaling back our plans or the timing of them rather than trying to pretend we're still 20 (and causing ourselves untold damage in the process).

For many of us, and perhaps with changing climates all of us, the new norm of conditions may be un-norms - as in unpredictable. I totally sympathize with catsrose and prairielaura for finding the middle ground of temperatures they were looking for not cooperating with their reality. In Nebraska, we're so used to wild temperature swings and unpredictability, consistency was never really an option - it's amazing how much and how thoroughly people talk about the weather here, but it really does change that much to be an interesting topic. I guess I'm reminded of a friend's suggestion when I was griping about road construction snarling up traffic on the freeway. Her advice was to consider construction delays the norm, and be delighted if there didn't happen to be any that day.

The analogy for us as gardeners is to expect the unexpected, to gradually move our gardens into a state where they can handle those changes, and to live gracefully with the consequences of those changes in disrupting all our plans. Some of the excitement of rose gardening is the unexpected surprise - a rebloom out of nowhere, a rose that you didn't think had survived, unplanned color combinations that take your breath away. Maybe rose gardening is taking every bloom and every flush as a gift, and making sure we spend the time to appreciate (and share) what may indeed be fleeting.

Cynthia

You have explained the conditions in which you grow your plants very well. But what if you live in an environment where you can't grow anything without regular irrigation? Since moving is not an option for me, my choices are to grow nothing or let sagebrush take over. Of course, that would not be allowed, either, where I live. Diane

The level of "regular irrigation" depends upon what is allowed; what is affordable; what is possible; and what your integrity permits you to use. I COULD turn portions of this hill into a virtual rain forest, but that would exceed my "water allotment"; far exceed my financial budget; require constant irrigation and go totally against my ethics concerning my water use. Those are things each of us has to balance. Kim

I'm more emotionally inclined to Michael's "wise passivity" than to anything resembling a "battle."

My only problem is that it is becoming more difficult these days to know what works. There are losses, where some roses can't adapt to our new reality. New high temperatures are racked up with some regularity.

The happiest plants in my garden today are the Plumerias. :-(

Jeri

P. 'Slaughter Pink;

I totally agree with Kim's ideas of gardening with, not against, Nature, which all of you have expressed in varying ways. Michael's comment was very well put. What I had in mind was those periods when submission is difficult because what's happening is genuinely distressing. I had a minor taste of this last winter, when two heavy snowfalls smashed my biggest Teas in a way I've never seen before. Everything recovered fine once spring finally got going, but it was unpleasant at the time, hard to accept. And some of you have had far worse things happen to your roses or your gardens; with a suggestion from the meteorologists and from Nature herself that we can't look for stability in the future. It takes serious philosophy to accept a major loss, or substantial uncertainty too, and to continue to live without erosive grief, fear, and anxiety.
Cynthia, I've been enjoying reading people's comments, too. By the way, I never wrote how much I liked your garden, nor how awed I am by your vast collection of roses in Nebraska, of all places! As you can tell I don't know much about the state and have a stereotyped notion of it. But what you say here reinforces the idea I had that it's a demanding climate to garden in.
Melissa

Melissa, sorry you've had setbacks over the winter in the distress over the snow damage - we've all been the beneficiaries though of the insights you gained from the experience. That's another example of what is very clear when we post about our various garden discouragements - we ALL garden in tough conditions in some way. Some years ago, there was a GW discussion about the ideal place to grow roses, and all of them have their ups and downs - there isn't an ideal place. PNW and England have dampness and grey, the US southeast has blackspot, Italy has its freak snowfalls, and places like Texas and California that should be rose meccas have the very great burden of water pressures. I think they garden under much harsher conditions than I do, and we're rapidly reaching the point where water is a more scarce and precious resource than fossil fuels. I do greatly appreciate your complements on my garden, and I've certainly overcome my share of hurdles (including most people's impressions of Nebraska - smile). We accept the hardships of our respective climates because we have to, but we are happiest if we choose to do so with humility and the "wise passivity".

I agree with nanadoll though, that this kind of humble response doesn't mean doing nothing to our gardens. Part of the whole point of a garden is to be cultivated to some extent, which means we've had a role in changing it. Otherwise, we have nothing to require our time or energies, and nothing in particular to take pride in. I dearly love walking in the mountains, but that kind of humility is a deep rooted respect for the Creator without any of the "wow, look what I've had a role in shaping" that I can say in my own garden. The point we seem to be agreeing on is to tailor those changes to what is realistically sensible within our constraints and not to chafe at what really won't work for us. That means that Jeri sighs wistfully but doesn't try to grow Albas in California, Olga and others on the east coast don't grow BS-sensitive HTs if they want to be no-spray, and I sigh but can't grow the magnificent hibiscus and water-thrifty plants that Kim posted in another thread. I tried a rock garden at my old house, but the plants died a rapid death even in relatively dry prairie weather. If I push my conditions, like growing teas that really aren't happy here, I accept their limitations and don't try to feed them unmercifully to make them as large as they're "supposed" to be (when I get back from vacation, I'll post a thread showing exactly how big teas DO get when they survive after a fashion in zone 5).

Cynthia

Ingrid thank you for encouraging me. Having our own water source that doesn't burden the environment makes me feel better. All the growth to live and hide in and water features have been a boon to the animals here. I feel good about that too. The bird population has probably tripled. There are jillions of bees and other pollinaters.