I know what you mean. There are so many beautiful garden photos that are posted here that make me think, "please come to my house and help me"!

I agree, there are some really amazing garden pics posted on this forum and it is a great source of inspiration!

When I plan a bed, I first use the garden hose to mark the outline to see what it will look like and then dig the edge. After that, countless drawings for plant placement. I have even tried a software programme that allows you to load a photo and add the plants - sort of gives you an idea of what it's going to look like. But that doesn't mean that it will stay like that! After a year or two if something doesn't look right or is not doing well, it gets transplanted or composted.
Sharlene

I like the sort of cottage garden look, and I think that's hard to plan. I have gardens, each being different. My roses I planned as a sort of gallery along the walkway up to the house. It sort of worked, but I really selected the wrong kinds of roses for what I had in mind. I've seen someone's spectacular Julia Childs, that I really envy. And I definitely didn't plan cantaloupes growing around my roses, but it has been the most welcome surprise of my gardening life. So basically, I wing it.

Sharlene, your gardens are exquisite.

I really wing it too jkelly..

Sara, I know what you mean. The gardens shown on here are magnificent!

First off, thanks so much!!! My design usually stinks - the below story should emphasize that LOL

Second off - my husband designed the current bed shape and the pot positions. I did all the flowers - but he did the shape of everything.

So here's the story.

When we lived in Fort McMurray in lovely zone 2, we had our first backyard. So I, in my wisdom, wanted to have rose archways that went across two rectangular beds. I envisioned walking underneath as perfume filled my senses and petals wafted slowly down around me. I knew nothing about roses. Sigh. :) My husband dug the rectangular beds next to each other as per my instructions. About then I learned that my rose plans for a sumptuous rose overhead archway were not to be. Zone 2, as you know, is not conducive to lovely rosed archways. So I figured I'd just buy some plants. The neighbor leans over his deck fence and says, "Who you got buried in those plots?" So I looked at the beds, and sure enough they looked exactly like two burial plots side by side. So I laughed about it, then got my husband to dig the grass from the middle and make a nice large square plot. Since then I haven't trusted my judgment anymore as to garden design. LOL So I leave that to my husband.

Sigh, such naivety!!

Carol

I'm not a creative designer at all, and was fortunate to have all the hardscape in place when we moved into our home. My husband dug out the grass from five garden areas of varying sizes and I planted them with the roses and colors I loved. I added various companion plants and the very few that survived in my conditions are still there now. There was a long area next to a steep dropoff which was bare and this I planted with tea roses, two butterfly bushes, a dwarf crape myrtle and a cypress which mirrored the one at the other side of the top of the driveway. On the other side, against the house, where there was nothing before I now have Aunt Margy's Rose, marjoram for the bees and a tall vitex which replaced a Reve d'Or that couldn't handle the sun against the house wall. We cut down a palm tree close to the hot side of the house that had many dead fronds that were too tall reach and put columnar junipers and two matching crape myrtles along that side of the house, along with many roses, most of which sooner or later succumbed to the heat or were moved to a cooler spot.

Two things that I think gave cohesiveness to the scheme was my dislike of garish colors and modern rose shapes and my wish to have the garden blend into the closely surrounding wild landscape. Thus the soft colors and soft shapes of the roses and bushes. It's not an adventurous or creative garden, but rather a place that makes me feel peaceful and at one with nature. Having an idea of what kind of feeling you want your garden to evoke probably should be the first and most important step in planning. When that forms a solid picture in your mind it's possible to follow that vision and make it real, although always subject to the vagaries of nature, insects, disease, drought, floods and everything else that sometimes seems to conspire against your dream. Unless something drastic and irreversible interferes, you can usually attain at least some semblance of that vision, enough to make you happy to go on and work at it for as long as it takes.

I always drool over the beautiful garden photos on here. However, I don't live in the country and even though I have a larger than normal suburban lot I don't really have any place to put a "designed" rose bed. I also live in Michigan and not the warm south or west so I can never expect my plants to get as large and lush as I see them on here. It took me a while to figure that all out but once I did I realized that I do pretty well for what I have to work with. It'll never be a show place but it's mine and it's OK!

Right on Seil!!!

Me too!

Carol

I gave up a long time ago worrying about ‘curb appeal’. I planted everything for our enjoyment. If you happened by and liked our flower, great, if not, so be it. I also have a motto that I follow, it either grows or goes! One Mr. Lincoln dropped all of it flower petals one day after they bloomed. The next day all that remained was a big hole…. and one root of Mr. Huey. He is still growing…..

One trick on designing a garden is to make the visitor want to go further into it. That is, what is behind this tall group of plants, etc. Wind the visitors around your garden, never letting them see the whole thing at once. Of course from your upper windows you get the grand view so take that into account as you plan.

Maybe you should post a drawing of your garden area with dimensions and let the folks here suggest the plants. After two or three ‘takes’ you should have something that you would enjoy.

I'm still learning on rose garden design, I want to come home to thousands of blooms after work, and smell the roses when I get out my car/house.....still working on adding fragrance to the garden. I love the French and Italian country rose gardens with tiers of ramblers, rose trees, tall and short roses, ground cover roses......one life to live, a life with thousands of blooms is delightful, cheerful and wonderful. :-)

Sometimes small gardens can be charming, like several gardens I saw on a walk in Kensal Rise, London. It was nice to see them, because my garden isn't much bigger. London has the advantage of rain!

Great ideas from everyone, and wonderful inspiring pictures Jasmine! English gardeners have centuries of experience (OK, not personally, but collectively) at making the most of small garden spaces.

In my garden, I'm pretty hopeless at planning things ahead of time, but what helps my sense of design is not to be afraid of changing something that isn't working, or adding something that the space needs. Sometimes I have to deliberately step back from a space that is bugging me and ask what quality I'm looking for that's missing - consistency in color or form? Height? Tidiness? Pizzazz? Then I can tweak that garden bed to add that missing element, and my gardens continue to grow along with me. I think I'd be paralyzed and never plant anything at all if I thought I had to map it out ahead of time (and then it'd never look like I imagined anyway).

The other big advice that helps in a design is to plan the "hardscape" and big things first. Do you want a fountain, bench and trellis, pool - if so, then put that in first and design around it. Similarly, if you want a massive great big tea rose or monster climber, start with that and then smaller things can go around it.

I also find that I can disguise a whole lot of garden design "mistakes" with annuals and other transient plants. Things that didn't hang together to start with do if I put in a row of edging plants or accent plants that tie the colors and forms together.

Cynthia

Really good comments from several posters, Ingrid and Seil in particular. I think I would do much the same in a new garden if I could start all over again as I have for the past 20 years in this suburban garden of half an acre. I have no view and share boundaries with five neighbours. I was lucky to have a small original woodland on one side as a background and one neighbour has a row of six very tall birches that form an important feature in my garden, I don't know what I'd do if they cut them down. Another neighbour has four tall thujas that I've forbidden them to take down as they are a focal point in my garden. You won't need to plant hedges for privacy which is the first thing I did, supported by the neighbours who felt the same need. Not a design issue, but if I started all over again I would amend the soil much better than I did all those years ago. And I would plant trees, lots of trees and not all of them on the perimeter of the garden like I did. One of the few shade trees is dying, an old apple tree, as old as the house from 1953, a catastrophe. I have all the features that you plan and I am fairly satisfied with them. The herb garden is near the kitchen, quite formal with topiary box balls, getting too big now.

Because I live in Sweden with a short growing season I have more onceflowering roses than modern roses, about twice as many. I have arched walks with climbers, an avenue with a mix of fruit trees and tall scented rose bushes. My garden is too small to separate utility from beauty. The area near the house is formal with modern roses in boxedged circles underplanted with spring bulbs. Bare soil between the roses which is quite unusual in Sweden, a nod to older fashions and a tribute to my husband's grandmother who trained as a gardener in Germany in 1910. Elsewhere I grow roses with perennials like lavender and nepeta and many other perennials. I have seven places for sitting out, big and small, for dining out or for just resting in sun or shade. There is a walk around the entire garden with grassed paths, some with pavers in them. My mixed beds are as wide as I could make them, some with inner paths for access. Vistas and sightlines are important. If I had more space I would plant avenues of beautiful trees. Evergreens are very important when the season is short so I have lots of box and yew, as hedges and topiary for winter interest. Coloured bark is a new interest.

Honestly, I think I enjoy planning out my rose garden using Microsoft Publisher than actually doing the work, lol. Here is the schematic for part of the garden.

Beautiful Kubla!

Back when my gardens were in more of the development mode, I would spend my winters making copies of roses I wanted and pasting them on blank pieces of paper (one for each gardening area)--arranging and rearranging, moving rose images here and there, changing my mind all winter until I found the right combinations (color, height, width, etc.)--and then when spring arrived, changing my mind again at digging time as I stood there, shovel in hand, and looked over the actual site.

That was a grand way to spend the winter--and I think the garden designs benefitted from the various changes they underwent on my paper plans.

It probably helped that somehow I was looking ahead enough to come up with a good structure for the gardens back in the beginning. The basic structure hasn't changed much over the years, although smaller gardens popped up here and there, in this corner and along that borderline over there, etc. After that I mostly just had to find fairly disease-resistant roses and decide where to put them on my paper plan and then in my real garden come springtime.

I do think planning is half the fun of rose-gardening.

Kate

Our garden was "designed" by my DH's great grandfather and grandfather, luckily for me, as I am not into garden designing at all. Originally, it was an empty 1/3rd of an acre (including the house). It came with a long fake "stone" short wall (made of cast concrete) all along the street frontage (about 120 ft), which is still there, and has proved a fabulous asset. In 1906 the great grandfather put in a front section with grape vines, a pond, and fruit trees. In the 1930s his son basically re-did the whole place, putting in 2 lawns, a widened driveway (the old one was not wide enough for modern cars), a new garage way in the back, and lots of flower beds. We have left the lawns (although now encroached on by bigger beds), and flower beds basically where they were. We have made some of the flower beds bigger, but not moved them. All I have done is fill the ones in the sun up with roses, with an emphasis on old old roses, and climbing roses where there is anything for them to climb on. Also "companion plants", which in my case are any flowering plants which survived in the garden, after my many experiments which failed. I just plant more of the ones which have turned out to like it here. Ditto bulbs - the best ones have turned out to be from South Africa.

Oh, one thing we did do - we took the area out by the street in front of the stone wall (2 long beds about 120 feet by 7 feet, interrupted by the driveway and one path, with the sidewalk running between them), which was not gardened at all, and turned it into garden beds. It had been parked on, and had gravel dumped on it for over 80 years, enhanced by weed killer every year. The dirt under the gravel was compacted, to say the least. My DH used a small jack hammer with a shovel bit on it, and dug up both beds (I am keeping him). Then he ran irrigation lines out there, under the wall and under the sidewalk. I got to plant them - that was the fun part!

Basically, I am a collector, not a designer. The resulting overall effect is definitely cottage garden, which I like a lot. Not planned (at least not by me) at all, however. I can say that the ancestors (who were from Germany) made great choices re the large bushes & trees which form the outside edges of the garden and protect us from the neighbors. They have all attained gigantic proportions. I have noticed that they all bloom, many in sequence, and most make berries. They are full of bird nests every year, and also attract migrating birds like robins and the elegant cedar waxwings. I have a list of birds we have actually identified in our yard, and it is two pages long single spaced!

So, I am just very very lucky to have inherited this garden. My DH's father also grew up and gardened here, and it is a nice feeling to be keeping up with the family tradition.

Here are two pics of part of the long beds out by the street - the first one taken in March, and the second in May when the roses had started to bloom:

I forgot to add, the other thing I do is allow "volunteer" flowers to grow if I like them: forget-me-nots, valerian (Jupiter's Beard), oxalis (can't get rid of it anyway).

Jacqueline, your garden is beautiful. Thanks for sharing the history and the photographs.

Same here :-( I am so envious of the gorgeous rose gardens so many of our members have posted pictures of. I'm constantly wiping the drool from my chin, lol!! They are truly stunning!! I know which roses I like but have trouble incorporating them into the overall space. Many have gotten much bigger than their stated sizes so these will need to be moved. I have several geometric shaped gardens with paths in the centers. I have trouble with "floating" roses that aren't anchored by a fence or a wall. This is my most difficult design area. The corridor is about 3 feet wide and runs along the main sidewalk on one side and a narrow sidewalk that leads to a bench or birdbath. All the roses I planted there have outgrown their spot even though they were supposed to be no taller than 3 feet. I also have trouble finding companions that will be flowering when the roses are resting but not overwhelm the area. I have limited sun so I'm trying to squeeze as many roses into my sunny spots as possible. I've tried miniatures in the past but none survived the winter.

I have gotten some great suggestions from members for companion plants that I'll be able to try next year. It definitely is a trial and error experience. Thanks to all who are willing to share their pics and advice though. I think with all your help and inspiration I may just muddle through it :-).

Local, local, advice is best. Have you driven around your town looking at gardens? If you find those you like, you might be able to talk to the gardener. The other thing I did was to notice flowering bulbs and bushes I liked which were growing and blooming in neglected gardens, or even in vacant lots, etc. If they grow where you live with no care, you might consider them.

I have one recommendation for a rose which actually stays short, even here, and blooms all of the time. It is an old polyantha called "Little White Pet". HMF says it is cold hardy to zone 6b. I have 3 mature bushes of it. In my garden EVERYTHING gets 2-3 times large than it is "supposed" to, but LWP stays 2 1/2 feet tall no matter what. My climate is way different than yours, but if you contact your local rose society and ask them about LWP, they should be able to tell you how it does there.

Also, please pots pictures of your garden - we would love to see them.

Jackie

I now have a rose garden with an actual design, all thanks to a happy accident. We bought a house with a small round aboveground pool right outside the breakfast nook bay window. It was circled with bark mulch and a nice edging on one side, and a stone patio on another. Took up the pool, dug a big doughnut-shaped bed with a small circle bed in the center. You enter off the patio and can walk on the bark among all the roses. The back half is somewhat shady and consists of the Fairy, Vanity, Darlow's Enigma, Blush Noisette. I have one big plant of Lavender Dream in the center. The back is against a split rail fence, and one side has a wood panel fence. I have pots lined up opposite the bay window for extra color-- Carefree Sunshine, Cubana, Rita Levi Montalcini. I'd like to add South Africa and Valencia but not sure they'd be happy with my no-spray.

Oops, I meant Sunshine Daydream.