Thats a neat plant ive never seen before! I havent ordered yet, but ive been buying seeds for ws. I think ill be placing a large chamblees rose order , toward the end of january. I plan on getting lotsa austins. What kind of roses do you have?

Mickey- Congratulations! It's so exciting to start planning your garden for next year. Neat plant :)

Lilyfinch- Which Austins are you ordering?

I'm getting a Gertrude Jeckyll, Mary Rose and Heritage for my mom...she's really excited. I'm getting some gallicas for my magical/fairy garden and some shrub roses for my perennial bed. I think I'm getting a Wife of Bath DA too. I want to get phlox, geraniums and more lavender to go in the perennial bed.

Right now, I'm concentrating on roses that change color (gallicas) and small blooming shrub roses and some with single petal blooms. This is more of the kids' area. In front of the lilac hedge I hope to put more albas, damasks, gallicas, portlands and maybe some hardy David Austins. If I'm lucky, I'll get that dug up this summer and maybe take advantage of the end of summer sales :)

LL- i plan on getting sceptre d'isle, abraham darby, grahm thomas, evlyn,jude the obscure, tamora, and im searching for a good red. Red is a color i struggle with, i dont care for it but want red roses! I also want to try easy does it, the new rose that won some awards. Im hoping to find jackson and perkins' Disneyland rose as well at my local nursury, ive heard good things about it.
You are so lucky to have a lilac hedge! In our last home, our neighbor had a giant lilac by our fence, i used to hang out near to catch the scent. I love it! Have you heard about the boomerang lilac? Its new this year as well, supposed to bloom most of summer. I will be hunting for that too!
At my nursuries clearance sale in october i snagged a bunch of roses 75 percent off. I only hope they come back so i can enjoy them! Ive never grown roses either, but fell in love this year!

I have species and old garden roses scattered around, but in the rose garden I only grow HT roses that have won the Gamble award. DH and I both garden, but very differently. We meet in the middle with lilies and fragrant roses - we both love those.

I have lots of mini roses to. I used to have a great collection of micro-minis, but I babysat my nieces demon dog while she was pregneat and he dug them all up and baked them in the hot sun.

Lilyfinch- I would like to get Sceptre d'isle. It sounds like you have a lot of great choices. I have Tamora and I love it! My favorite red rose is Oklahoma. It smells like old roses and the color is almost like red/black velvet. Very pretty and so dark it goes well with pink, yellow, almost any color....except Tamora, so I try to put a few pink roses in between them :)

Tamora started out more apricot, but whether it was the heat or my clay soil, she got a lot more pink by the end of the summer.

I do love lilacs and this is a gorgeous hedge. Probably 12' feet tall at least and 75' long with white, pale lavender, blue lavender, pink lavender and purple all mixed together. I can take no credit for it, as my husband's grandmother planted them over fifty years ago. Not only would the roses look good against the hedge, but I'm hoping to distract the deer at the same time (LOL)

Boomerang lilac sounds interesting. My mom likes the new one that's supposed to rebloom, I think it's josee? Great find on the roses!

I am getting together a Michigan Bulb order...witch hazel, white bleeding heart, sorbet peony, candy stripe phlox, and Josee reblooming lilac. I can't wait!
Jen F

Mickey- That's so sad about your micro-mini roses. Your rose garden sounds beautiful, do you have any pictures of the roses?

Cottagegirl- I just ordered the candy stripe phlox from Michigan Bulb too...and the pink geraniums :)

Those are all great plants, Jen! Lots of color and long time bloomers! Good luck; let us see pictures! ~Mickie

LL - I think the only photos of it are either of the clematis obelisk or the tulips! I'll look. Hmmph - you'd think I'd take pictures of ROSES in the ROSE garden. Go figure!

Oh - DH said he has one at work - I'll get it Monday!

Mickie