Sorry to hear Ingrid. I always look forward to your pictures, the are lovely to my eyes, the setting is so tranquil. Hope things turn around.

Thank you, everyone, for the precious gifts of friendship and love you've all extended to me. That will never be forgotten, a garden in my heart that will always bloom.

Beautiful picture which reminds me I need to start growing foxglove again.

It (dig) was featured prominently in the Apothecary garden at Williamsburg when I last visited.

I am so sorry Ingrid..so sorry. It still looks very beautiful to my eyes! One of these days I have to ask you what milk weed and salvia you are growing. I want to plant a butterfly garden. You too look very lovely.

Do you think you can just see it as a "winter garden", where you get flowers only during the rainy season? Much like the northerners do here during the summer, knowing they get no flowers during winter? (I'm assuming once the rains start the critters will eat elsewhere)
Also, I don't remember if you have ever tried pepper spray?

Carla in Sac

Ingrid, you are lovely and so is your garden. The snakes are going to eat your rats and the rains will come. Your garden is such a teaching tool regarding global warming and climate change. You don't even know how many people you have helped learn about your climate and your struggle with it. It reminds me of the book "Angle of Repose" by Wallace Stegner. I wish your husband was a filmmaker, so he could make a documentary about your garden story. I know we all wish we could help. I cannot thank you enough for your inspiration.

Ingrid,

So sorry for the damage to your garden but the roses you have left are lovely as are you! Would a terrier be out of the question? Our Salukis have had some success with rats, rabbits, gophers and careless pigeons. Doesn’t help our front yard though.

After seeing damage to a lot of rabbit resistant plants there are some that just don’t get touched here. Rosemary, Lavender(Goodwin Creek), Salvia Clevelandii and Chamaedryoides, Cactus with spines(they love the smooth ones), Agaves once they are bigger, Teucrium aroanium, and Penstemon Parryi and lantana come to mind.

Your property is so beautiful and your roses wonderful I’m sure it’s hard to see things being less than they were. Still, gardening is about change and I wonder if tough and lovely California natives are In your future.

Thanks for all your honest assessment of roses in your yard over the years, it’s been the inspiration for some roses I have.

maria and here’s some of my pest survivors - roses are behind bars:)

So sorry, Ingrid. Over the years that I've been following your garden, there's the sense that there will always be special and wonderful plants growing there.

I hope your roses will continue to bloom, and that the largest and sturdiest plants continue to form a solid foundation for the garden.

Oh I'm so sorry too that you're going through a bad spell in the garden... still got some nice roses to show... hope you get a turnaround in fortunes very soon.. but if the Amazon rain forest continues to go up in smoke... we'll all be coming with you..

..p.s. I like your hair... easy to manage and carefree.. a bit like mine in fact, although I have more fringe I would say..

...do take care.. I'm not here so much these days... just looking in and keeping in touch... I long for more settled times, they seem out of reach currently...

….best wishes xxx

Beautiful photos of Souvenir de la Malmaison. I am so sorry the creatures are eating your garden. They have learned to prefer the produce we provide to that from Mother Nature, I guess.

As sad as I was for you reading this post, your lovely face cheered my day. I also read this as a "good-bye" letter and hope this is not the case. You have given so much. It's so difficult to spend what little energy one has caring for something only to see it destroyed, but a re-balancing is inevitable and hopefully one will come to your garden soon! Please stay in touch.

I can only agree with all the expressions of gratitude, and hope that this is just a phase in the garden‘s regeneration. You have poignantly captured the story of your garden, and I too would be very sad if that was a goodbye. A break for a little grieving time is very understandable, but you are too important a presence here for it to be forever. Big hugs being sent to you, sweet rosey friend!! :-)

You have all brought me to tears and they're literally running down my face as I write this. I cannot say or know at this point whether I can continue on here; what is happening now is too unprecedented for me to know what I feel or how to proceed. Time will tell.

Katya, my perennials were all from Annie's Annuals, and the salvia is 'Henry Duelberg' and the milkweed 'Silky Gold "Tropical Milkweed". The foxglove is 'Digitalis purpurea' "Camelot Rose". The foxglove is this morning still untouched by the critters. I was thrilled when I saw four Monarch Butterfly caterpillars on the milkweed one day, but the next morning they were all gone, no doubt vanished into bird tummies.

It is now becoming very hot and dry and wildfires are a very real danger. Dear Lisa, it's a comfort to me that your wonderful roses are okay, and that Wild Edric and Annie Laurie McDonnell have found a safe haven in your garden. Who knows whether they would have survived here.

Thank you so very much for your beautiful words. The only thing that lasts, and the only truly important thing in this world, is love. I am so very fortunate.

How are you Ingrid? Yes the only important thing is love. <3

Ingrid, stay with us....roses or no roses, doesnt matter. You upgrade this forum with your class and sensitivity and I'm sure I'm not speaking for myself when I say we all love you. I have been on these forums since 2004, mostly lurking, sometimes posting, and want to say that it will be our loss if you stop posting.