Sheila, you are a force of nature! It amazes me how quickly your Tea Garden has come together, and somehow looks like it's always been there.

Just out of curiosity, how many Teas do you have?

Virginia

Oh my! What a pleasure it has been today to read this thread from beginning to end. You’ve done a marvelous job there, Sheila. Everything looks wonderful! Surely you have some professional experience under your belt? If not, I think you could make a living at this. It really is that lovely. Lisa

Thank you so much Virginia and Lisa. It is a labor of love. I have about 30 Teas now. Fourteen are in the garden above, M Tillier to the right of my home, 3 are in my butterfly garden, and another fourteen are in a new garden I just put in. The Teas are so enchanting! I have loved running out to see what they are going to do next. It is so exciting to know they likely will get better and better.

Say what!!!!???? Did we hear about this new garden yet or did you just sort of slip that into the sentence hoping no one would notice? ; )

I have about 20 teas growing roots in 3 gallons while I make my tea bed. This is so inspiring, Sheila!

I'll have to post another thread of the new new Tea Garden. It looks so pathetic at first.

Third Spring update. I love the Tea roses. Ingrid, here you are.

Teas show some color.Papa Gontier and G NabGeorgetown Tea in back and Madame Lombard in front look pretty identical.DevoniensisRosette DeLizyHermosa a china not a Tea I knowG Nab is really a standout.The fillers are doing well, with Georgetown and Madame LambardAnna Olivier coming on after early buds froze.LeVesuve with volunteer foxglove.

Officially jealous over here. LOL!

Another cold climate admirer over here - I WANT to grow teas!!! Your garden is absolutely inspiring, Sheila.

Sheila I love how you garden. Your roses are beautifully grown. I love the nepeta, obvious since I have so much myself, but I also love how you combined the lavender, spurge, poppies, foxglove and all the other companions. It’s all just so beautiful, along with your wall and scenic background.

Magnificent! Your tea colors are so saturated. You've created a perfect background for them.

What everyone else said plus a thousand more words of awe and ecstasy, Sheila! Carol

How exciting! When I saw this update in my email I raced to see!!!! Be still my heart! Sheila, it's marvelous!!!!!!!!! You're a genius.

Shiela, I been waiting and waiting...finally I get to see it. It is beautiful and oh my goodness, they are huge. What have you been feeding them ? They grew so, so fast. Absolutely beautiful. I love all the companion plants.Oh, WOW !!!!!

I need your expertise here in my backyard..lol

Jin

Superb! I can almost smell the fragrance.

Sheila...your tea garden is stunning, and such an inspiration!

Thank you all for your heartwarming comments! I bet the roses will be over the wall height in no time.

an impressive before and after

Sheila, that is just lovely. Every time I see photos of your garden, I imagine a little hut, tucked out of sight, that I could live in. I'm astonished at the health and vigour and floriferousness, and the perennials are not to be outdone! Trish

Fabulous Sheila, perennials, sunny blue skies and all... love the use of Euphorbia too [wulfenii?.]... all rather exquisite really and in what seems like so short a time..

Fall update 2018.

LeVesuveLeVesuveRosette DeLizyRosette DeLizy in a redder hot mode.DittoDittoFall is here.G NabGeneral Schablikine in phlomis fructiosa.Mrs. BR Cant.

Papa Gontier
My detailed report disappeared, but short version is low rainfall last Winter (11.5 inches instead of 18.5 inches average for the year) and this Fall seemed to stall some of the plants. Devoniensis and LeVesuve each lost a cane to damage in the Spring then sulked. Madame Antoine Mari and Duchesse de Brabant did not enjoy heat and the Fall flush was too late to open. Hermosa became a nudist. Madame Berkeley is thinly foliaged. Papa Gontier is gawky.

All in all, this baking Summer was a bit much as you all know.

RD against that wall still steals the show, to my eye. Such a beautiful colour combination. I am so glad your photos convinced me to give her another go. I still find that some of the blooms ball - about 1 in 5 - but she's so worth it.

Somehow I missed this thread over the past couple of years. Other than agree with the people who suggested RD should go in the back, I probably would have had nothing to say. But now that you've reached this point, I'll join in the admiration.

Thank you all! Now in the third summer I really appreciate the clues to put RD and Papa Gontier in back. They are the tallest so far by far. Madame Berkeley could have gone in the front instead of G Nab who is much taller and fuller here and is in front. Mrs. BR Cant is lower and spreading here instead of tall so far. I am counting on General Schablikine and Anna Olivier to grow taller, which I am confident they will do. Lynn in LV was right to put Archduke Charles elsewhere, which I did, because his colors don't go with the sherbet colors of the rest of the garden. I really hope we get some rain this winter because irrigation is good, but rain is better.

Gorgeous! I tried growing Rosette DeLizy but it didn't make it through last winter. Then I realized I probably didn't have the space for it.

Well, now I know why Ingrid has a Tea row, rather than a double Tea row. My garden is progressing and Teas are starting to bloom. I don't have the elegant look here that Ingrid has, but I love them all. We are several inches low in rain and are in a drought this year.

General Schablikine in phlomis fructiosa and Madame Antoine Mari.

Papa G

M Antoine Mari extra full.

Mrs. BR Cant

MAM again.

Mrs. BR Cant again.

exquisite! And in such a short. Of time.

Georgetown Tea looking the same as Madame Lombard here. Both from ARE.

You probably get the general idea that bloom has not started for all, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling.

Sheila, that picture is absolutely breath-taking. I love the the combination of lighter and darker pink roses, with the yellow perennials and other colors and shapes of plants interspersed between then. My Tea Rose Row is unfortunately a shambles right now, nothing like it used to be, but this year in many ways is different. Summer began much too early, with barely the normal amount of rain for us here, but we and our roses will just have to hang tough. I continue to go back to your photo and blowing it up because it is so intensely satisfying.

I just now went back and enlarged all your photos. So beautiful!

Wow, everything has filled in so nicely, Sheila and is incredible! I especially like Mrs BR Cant (it’s on my hope-to-grow-if-I-ever-move-to-a-warmer-climate list) and Papa Gontier.

That's becoming a really glorious garden, Sheila! Rose heaven.

One of my all-time favorite threads, Sheila, that I look at again and again. And now there’s new photos to enjoy! Thanks so much for that! You’ve done a lovely job placing your teas in a way that really celebrates their graceful beauty! 😊

Simply spectacular, Sheila. I can't tell you what it means to see your garden thriving.

Sheila, it all looks wonderful. So full and lush. You must be thrilled. I was only going to get another Mrs BR Cant - to replace the one I trod on - if I could find Jaune Desprez (which I can't}, but now I'm re-thinking that.

Your garden is looking wonderful Sheila! Thanks for sharing it with us.

Sheila, I just wanted to say, (and I'm sure I speak for all of us) you can never post enough pictures of your garden to satisfy us! How did you prepare the ground before laying out the garden? I'm guessing you're gardening on some pretty rocky soil up in the hills of southern Oregon?

All I can say is.......Incredibly beautiful! Thanks, Sheila. Lisa

John, I just dumped topsoil/compost mix on top of the baked hard pan subsoil fill I had covered with newspaper. Basically, what I described in the "Second Tea Garden" report except the second time I used cardboard under the soil compost. I never really prepared the ground. You really could not dig in the existing base.

My second Tea garden report, I added humic acid and my husband broadforked around each plant hole. That is the garden with the wood fence backdrop. That area got a little prep then and is cooler, not being up against the stucco.

I think this lasagna method helped because the "soil" on the property was barren and hopeless. I did add irrigation.

I appreciate the photo comment because one does not want to be boring, but I also like to see how things progress for good or bad. It could help others like others have helped me.

Sheila, what a masterpiece you have created. I am not familiar with most of your roses so thank you for introducing them to me.

Shelia...thank you so much for updating the progress on this border so we can see the process of a tea rose becoming a mature plant. This is sooooo helpful to us as we plan our own gardens.

Your roses and their companion plantings are looking stunning!! Each picture you post is full if wonderful things to look at. Your 'Papa Gontier' is the star of the show right now...just beautiful!

Yes, this is extremely helpful. Not only the garden planning notes but also seeing how these tea roses develop, the size and colors to expect from them...all the information that's so hard to come by in books. Your first hand experience of creating and tending to this garden has the value of a documentary or a garden journal. Plus, the photos are always amazingly gorgeous!

I hope you get more rain next winter. Beautiful Tea roses and companion plants, lovely scenery and landscaping...

That wall is a perfect backdrop for your rose garden and lovely, lovely background scenery with those beautiful trees. And of course...the roses are really wonderful!

More open blooms here.

Anna Olivier from Greenmantle G Nabonnand with Papa Gontier in backDuchesse de BrabantMadame Lambard

Madame Antoine MariAnna OlivierBaby Anna Jung in center with Anna Olivia behind MAM on left.Hermosa just starting with Rosette Delizy directly way in back.