Wow! What a transformation! Lovely.

Truly, Sherry, I got misty-eyed. I'm so darn proud of you!

Ingrid

Sherry,
What made marie pavie so unhappy? Is clotilde more happy in your humidity?
That is awesome you transformed the area the following year!

Marie Pavie likes a more acidic environment, so she lives happily several miles away in a pine forest. Clothilde, amazingly, isn't bothered by blackspot here - hardly at all, anyway. After tossing, so to speak, one third of my roses, I've found ones that pretty much like it here, humid or not.

Obviously, it wasn't me who did the transformation. I just gave the roses their water everyday instead of every other day, and they did the rest, i.e., grew leaves and held on to them. Just wanted to give a rather extreme example of a garden "turning around". You could say maturity all around helped. Granted, there's a tremendous amount of work involved, BUT the roses did it. So don't give up on them, and I'll try to remember that, too.

Sherry

Sherry you get my award for the year!

For most improved disaster area? :))

Wow! What a message of hope for the rest of us! That is truly one amazing transformation - unbelieveable it's just one year's difference! I'm so glad you posted this. It really shows what can be done. Your garden is so beautiful, I would have never dreamed how it started out.

I remember, Sherry. You added drip irrigation and increased fertilizer. Voila! Smart girl.

That really is an impressive change. Congratulations!

seeing as I think I've completely killed the large camellia in my front yard, I certainly hope that this gardener (me) will get smarter and stop crying sometime. lol. :....(

Wow! Great job, girl! All those salty tears (and green thumbs) worked wonders. Thanks for sharing your lovely 'after' pictures!

Wow, Sherri, what a difference! Your garden looks so lush and well planted.

Masha

BEAUTIFUL turn around! There have been times in my garden (I am going through one now in fact) where I feel like bulldozing the whole thing and letting the crabgrass take it over. Or better yet, paving it. But somehow the few flowers I have that do wonders keep me going. Mostly the roses, daylilies and hydrangeas. I get frustrated here in Tampa because the flowers I grew up with in South Georgia don't grow well here and I am not a fan of the tropical garden. It is inspiring to see that beautiful gardens CAN be grown in zone 9 without the ubiquitous bird of paradise or traveler palm. Now a question, where do you buy your roses? I am always looking for a great place to get roses. There is one here in Tampa, but they don't have everything I am looking for, including Clothilde Soupert.

Thanks and congratulations!
-Ken

ps, can't believe that's only a year difference!

Thanks, everyone, and yes, apparently gardens can change/turn around quickly here, so there's always reason for hope.

Ken, I've been getting a lot of my roses from Rose Petals Nursery in Gainesville off I-75. That's where CS came from. They're very nice ladies who sell excellent plants and have a large selection for our climate. Re companion plants that aren't Bird of Paradise: I have just been seed shopping online for October planting and getting my lights & bench ready for the seed flats. Things like pansies*, petunias*, Foxy foxglove*, Rocket snapdragon*, larkspur*, old fashioned mustard*, sweet william*, viola*, purple coneflower, gaura*, coreopsis, Summer Carnival hollyhocks. There's a good book called "A Cutting Garden for Florida" by Mackey & Brandies that gives good suggestions for plants that work here (they gardened in the Tampa area) and ones that don't work. The key is planting them in the fall so they have time to grow and bloom before it gets hot. The last four of the above list grow well in the summer in my garden. Hope this is helpful.

Sherry

* - my first try with these

Here is a link that might be useful: Rose Petals Nursery