Melissa- Your garden sounds beautiful! You have such great ideas and plans for your space.

My goals when designing the garden are to find a way to blend my "vision" for the garden with our surroundings. We live on a farm in Eastern Washington state that has pine trees on the back hill, poplars and aspen along the creek behind the house and pasture for the horses along the creek. It's very pretty, but it's been a challenge for me to design a garden that doesn't compete with the view. Too many flowers, too fussy and it would seem out of place, but evergreens and shrubs around the house is not my style. I finally have come up with my interpretation of a "french country" garden :)

You're right, roses and lavender are beautiful together and since antique roses are more cold hardy and only bloom in early summer, they avoid the hot temperatures that are so hard on the hybrid teas. Hidcote lavender has worked out really well, it's cold hardy, I love the deep purple flowers and it keeps the deer out of the roses. I like lots of herbs, which provide texture without too much color, along with some vines like honeysuckle and star jasmine (which is an annual here, but I love the fragrance).

My second goal is to keep the gardens functional. I want to have a kitchen garden/potager, enclosed with a fence that is edged with raspberries and blueberries. We have a very old apple tree in front of the lilac hedge and I'd like to add a few more fruit trees.

My final goal is to use native plants in the garden. They're cold hardy, use less water and make a nice transition to the pasture. There are some native roses that grow along the fence lines. I want to transplant some to put in front of the lilacs. We also have shad bushes (serviceberry) that mix in well with the butterfly bushes and coneflowers on the edges of the yard. Nice transition area and great for the bees and butterflies :)

Melissa, since I only have a balcony, I don't plan much of anything for my "garden", save for moving things around from time to time to catch more (or less) sun. But I thought I would just ask about your need for shade: have you thought about a pergola with a quick-growing vine over it? It needn't be permanent if you have long-range plans for shade trees, but it would be a place to sit and enjoy the garden, catch the breezes, and maybe put potted plants that need a little coddling until they are planted out.

I always enjoy reading about your garden, whatever is going on with it.

Laura

Oh that's funny! I had just submitted my response about setting up a pergola for shade in your garden, and when I returned to the Antique Rose Forum, someone had posted about pergolas! Although I wasn't really thinking about the kind you buy, but about the kind that country people build with posts and a woven lattice covering, I think made from reeds or straw or something...

Laura

Apparently, my goal when I designed my garden six years ago was to cram everything possible into it, and then some more. Now, we can barely get around the tight corners and narrow walkways, and things got much worse when large plants tipped or toppled in a fierce storm a couple of weeks ago. My goal now is to be able to walk freely in my garden. If I were to design anew, a goal would be accessibility - not wheelchair, just gardener-with-a-wheelbarrow.

Melissa, that is a rather flippant response to one of your wonderful, thought-provoking questions. Don't have time to think about my goals right now - but I'll chew on it, and post some more later. Thanks for this thread!
Anita

Goals:
-a thrice gorgeous garden, with exquisite roses that provide pretty foliage as well as a graceful growth habit.
- good foliage and attractive growth habit makes Tea my favorite rose class followed by Alba.
- a four season garden.

Because I miss the snow of my native Pacific Northwest, I would create drifts of white, in the winter garden, on both sides of the path, the lush heart-shaped leaves of white violets brush the ankles of freinds, in back of the violets are thick drifts of antique white Narcissus, while overhead, an arbor arches over the path, from which a curtain of white fragrant Poets' jasmine, would bloom, providing a mimicry of snow, because these all bloom in November to January where I live near San Francisco, California.
Prolonging the snow garden effect through April, the double white 'Lady Banks' rose, which is the first white rose to bloom, follwed by "Mme Alfred Carriere'.
The snow garden is followed by what would hopefully be;
-Garden of sublime color and beauty; in late April the rest of the Tea roses bloom, and fill the garden with roses of these hues; yellow to gold, and peach to apricot, and all the myriad shades of pink, strawberry pink, to cerise, with dapplings of rose-red.
to complement the pastel hues of Tea roses, there would be underplantings of purple Verbena, in front of the yellow and white Tea roses, and forget-me-not blues, in drifts by the pink Teas. Sweet Alyssium would bloom here and there, like mounds of lace.
Alba roses that bloom in June, to provide more exquisite white roses, and because they continue to provide a glorious backdrop of glacous foliage after their bloom cycle is over, while the Tea roses can bloom their merry heads off through November.

Deciding on the best of all Tea roses, is my challenge.
If I could narrow it down to a dozen Teas, it would be a good start.

Luxrosa

Warning there are real good creative minds at work in this thread: I aim for themes in the roses/gardens that'll tell some type of story by names of roses dates of introductions colors types of growings full or best sizes for space and such and tie it all into a short story

Example: I can fit three roses in a area that are all named after Abraham Lincoln they'll all be different shades of red and different flowering types and sizes, but if wanna tell that story thats what I would have to get

The goals for my garden are to create a space (or spaces) that are relaxing, refreshing and romantic. I love to walk through the gardens hand in hand with my beautiful wife. We see what surprises the garden has for us. I try to have areas, or at least plants, that you can't really see unless you are walking by. My garden has to be fragrant and I'd like it to be low maintenance. (I haven't acheived that so far). Like you, Melissa, my gardens are home to my roses but they aren't rose gardens--more gardens that contain many roses. I tend to like the cool colors in the garden--pinks, blues, whites with a splash of some yellows and apricots for some warmth. I guess one last goal for my garden is a place that makes me (and my family and friends), happy and comfortable. Good topic for a post, btw. Jeff

My goals are mundane: to provide pleasing vistas from different perspectives, whether from inside the house through windows, from critical walkways like the front entry walk to the front door or pathways to different parts of the property, and even off the property, where my goal is privacy and obfuscation. I've learned so much, most recently, that a walkway through a garden is much more pleasing than a walkway along the edge of a garden; that objects of interest like a small pond or a bird bath can provide much interest but need not be in the middle of the vista to be pleasing; and that large landscape grasses can blend magnificently with large roses. I also learned that European descriptions of rose sizes are a recipe for garden chaos, in which I excel. For every smart planting, I think I make 3 gross errors.

Back when I started here, 18 years ago , my goal was to get rid of the rocks. I think this place was an old river bed that had been scraped flat. I was surprised how long it took to get rid of the rocks-ten years. I bought dirt, and made it out of horse manure. Picked rocks, on and on. I have a hill now of them that's about fifteen feet tall.
Next spring, I'm finally going to do it. It has been my experience that climbing roses lose their canes around here except for the ones that grow along the ground. In China, rosa wichurana grows up cliffs. So next spring I'm clearing this hill of all the weeds and covering it with bark. I ordered a lot of climbing roses from Ashdown roses going-out-of business sale and I'm making holes around the bottom of this hill. They are in pots now in the bedroom.
They always make it through the winter here, but lose their canes monotonously. This hill needs a statue on the top or an old rugged cross or something. Maybe I'll steal a road sign. "Dead End."
Every time I made a new flower bed I lost track of the old one so I am in the process of consolidating everything at the back of the house. I have three acres here so my yard is about an acre. My husband calls it the Specimen garden so I'm trying to cut that out.
I'm working on hedging the entire place to block the deer out and my snooty neighbors. Deer won't jump what they can't see through. I have enough rosa eglanteria to do the front and they love to eat the hips.
I love tall roses so I'm making an "Avenue of the Giants" in the front yard which will lead the way down to the view of the mountains. These are chosen to have rosa setigera lineage, which is native to Michigan. I got Baltimore Belle, Forstmeister's Heim, Captain Kidd, and Doubloons. I also got High Country Banshee and I'm putting in Hallie's Rose. At the end we'll build a little bridge across the ditch. Sometime. When I can nag Himself into it.
I'm really getting too old for my vice so my goal is "Simplify and Finish."
The kids are all raised so we've been dragging the old clothes , toys, junked out computers, stereos, etc and dead couches to the dump for a year now.
I've found nothing is ever done in a garden and you have to remind yourself that life is a journey, not a destination.

When I design my garden, my goals are:
1) To keep the formal feel that I have and love. I tried the informal look, but hated it around my house, so I ripped it all up and now stick to what I love.
2) To have a sense of awe-inspiring beauty in my gardens. Don't think I've achieved it just yet, but hopefully as my garden matures, some of the elements in it will come together as I've imagined.
3) To draw people forward to a 'destination' as well as have areas for quiet reflection/relaxation.
4) To choose plants not only for their beauty (roses in every area) and form, but also for different foliage, flowering times, and attraction to bees, butterflies and hummers.
5) To be able to grow old and have the garden still be beautiful with less and less maintenance. (Have not achieved this yet!)

Right now, I am putting in an area a year, and trying to keep up with the maintenance of the previous areas, so when I design an area I also include:
1) The time and effort needed to be able to achieve this area.
2) The monies required for new plants, structures, hardscaping, mulching.
I tend to underestimate and go over on both these accounts.

This is a good topic as I am sure everyone designs their gardens with different criteria, as our gardens are all as individual as each of us. I have enjoyed reading what others have said and look forward to reading more.

I try to give each plant the ideal conditions for it to grow. A happy, thriving plant, no matter how ordinary, is a beautiful plant.

I try to screen out the neighboring houses to give a sense of privacy.

I try to avoid clashing colors, but fail there often.

I try to engage all senses, not just the visual: sound of water, fragrance of herbs and flowers, taste of fruit, texture to feel.

My garden has evolved over time. I don't think I've had any clear goals, other than to create a lush, private sanctuary. This has been difficult as I have only 1/4-acre.

I inherited the beginnings of this garden, and have spent too much time pondering the intents of the gardeners who lived here in the past. It has been a challenge to create my own vision within the confines of the established landscape. I have 5 huge evergreen trees, a large maple, and mature old-fashioned shrubs such as spirea and mock-orange.

The house is on a steep hill, partly hidden by a holly hedge. I share a driveway with a few other houses. We park our cars in the backyard and walk through part of the garden to reach the house.

I do like the fact that the house is enveloped by the gardens; it's lovely to look out the windows (of which there are too many and that's why it's often freezing in here). I do not like the fact that there is a car in the backyard but I have to put in somewhere.

I have about 60 roses mixed in with all sorts of other plants. I have been making room for more, but I am getting to the point where others things will have to be edited out. The front and sides of the yard have only grassy paths left, the back has some lawn left but my sons insist on playing there.

Maureen

I think the idea of a Mediterranean garden is always foremost in my mind. It fits perfectly into my environment but more importantly it's the style I love most. It is also a garden that is free of all chemicals and attracts many insects and animals. The roses are the main feature of the garden and I want them to be lush and beautiful but at the same time they should look at home in their surroundings and blend in with the companion plants. I'm not nearly there yet, but I'm working toward a garden that will look spectacular as one arrives at house level after driving up a long winding driveway through a natural landscape and between two cypresses that mark the beginning of the garden. I have no idea whether I'll ever succeed because garden design is not my forte but hopefully it will be a garden that has individuality and is interesting and beautiful to look at.

Ingrid

Melissa, your garden sounds wonderful. I wish you the very best success with it.

My garden, my goal is just to keep it going and growing now, several years out from its prime when it was so lovely, before the diastrous years of drought and insect infestation, blight and fungi. Now, just to have a few bouquets per year that do not break my back or my bank account. It's all good as long as it is living and doing well.

To me goal has a different conotation than vision. Everyone has heard about my vision a time or two and I don't want to bore them. Right now my goal involves completing the rambler collection. To attempt to put together and care for an entire class of roses gives a wonderful sense of purpose to my garden and life. We started with already having quite a few ramblers growing on the fence line. Two years ago now Michael completed the first big new area of fence where we placed around 80 big roses pushing out of their 5 gallon pots taken over from the Vintage garden. Last spring he got the rest of what must be a couple of acres fenced. The roses in the big pots are in the ground now and there are more ramblers growing up in pots. Some day they will all be huge and blooming and I will be thrilled. I am also planting a few trees, native plants and species roses in this new area.

Melissa, you got me thinking when you wrote you want your garden to be "handsome at mid-view and even at a distance". I am going to give that more consideration.

I suppose I am a complete romantic when it comes to my garden and I want it to be a portal to another era. Maybe pre-revolutionary France, or Venezia, Italia during it's hey-day.

I love hearing about all your ideas regarding your Italian garden, Melissa. Benedica voi e il vostro giardino, sempre.

Bonne Chance,

Juliet

Thanks to everybody, and perhaps we'll be lucky and more people will write! I've enjoyed reading all this but mendocino rose is correct, vision and goal are different. Almost everyone who cares at all about her/his garden wants it to be beautiful, and of course all gardeners have their own ideas about exactly what "beautiful" is. I wanted to go beyond that and inquire into what other goals people want to reach in their gardening, besides having it be beautiful. For me having a lot of plants to give shade and cool the air in summer, to sequester carbon, and to enrich the soil, is important. So in addition to beauty I have goals of improving the environment in a tiny way and making ourselves more comfortable. I also buy roses to help preserve them and to distribute them by passing along cuttings and rooted plants, hoping to preserve worthy varieties and also put roses into circulation that require less water, less fertilizer, and that grow well without spraying.
Juliet, grazie! Continuiamo a parlare di giardinaggio, cosimpariamo tutti.

Melissa

I have been in this present garden for 16 years and my first goal was only to create privacy in this open plan garden surrounded by five neighbouring gardens with no borders at all. Most properties are subdivided in my area. Ours is among the largest, a half acre with a quarter of it a little bit of native wood. The only hedge was to the street but it was high enough. Our neighbours happily joined us in planting lilac hedges. It seemed they had only waited for someone to begin. One neighbour put up a wall first and planted lilacs on top. Next priority was to plant as many roses as possible, of all classes and varieties. The plantings near the house are formal with box hedging round modern roses while the rest of the garden gets wilder and less formal the farther one gets from the house with species roses around the perimeter. I started my design ambition by trying to copy a plan by Gertrude Jekyll from a book but found very soon that it would not work with our house. The house sits too high above the ground. I've kept some of the ideas, though, dividing up the boring lawn with shrubs, trellises and rose walks with arbours to create inner rooms but hopefully not making it too cramped and cluttered. There is still lots of grass. The result is a very lush garden with many nooks for the grandchildren to hide in and three paved areas for sitting outside. Our garden is for gardening, our hobby, so we haven't made it low maintenance but we've already planned for the time when we'll have to downsize.

This is a very interesting thread! My goals for my garden have evolved over time as many others have said. In the beginning I was more focused on collecting roses and planting as much as possible to create an abundant look. I also wanted to grow roses no-spray and to find which ones were best suited to my climate. These goals I mostly met.

I have found over time I now have an added goal of lowering the maintenance of my garden and I've scaled some areas back to achieve this and to also avoid a "crammed" look. What was "abundance" when things were young turned into "crammed in" years later... The paths of my garden I wish were wider and the beds needed to be farther apart with more room allocated to some of the bigger roses. I also needed to access roses and especially climbers for care, and hadn't thought about such things as not putting arbors on a hill where you can't safely stand a ladder up to train the roses... I've learned a lot through trial and error and are much more mindful of the practicalities than I once was!