Our garden (on a 1/3 acre lot) has been gardened since the house was brand new and on a bare lot in 1905. The gardeners were my DH's great grand parents (immigrants from Germany), grand parents, father, and now my DH and I. We bought the house 35 years ago from his parents and one of his aunts, being the 3rd generation in a row to be able to purchase it from the prior generation. I realize that a 118 year old house & garden is not really a great age for the US East Coast or other places, but it is a really long time for California.

Most of the surviving perennials I have been excited about were all of the old roses (I had not gardened before, and I had no idea what was going on the first Spring - why were there roses suddenly blooming on top of the old garage, at the very top of a very tall old plum tree, and why oh why did that large green 8 ft by 30 ft "hedge" I was barely aware of suddenly cover itself with pink roses?). I started to read books about old roses. We live in a Mediterranean climate (cool wet winters, then several months of totally DRY warm summers), near San Francisco Bay, zone 9 trending towards 10. The roses which had survived when we moved in here were mostly old tea roses, hybrid china roses, and other warm weather lovers. . Over the years I have been able to identify most of the roses, and of course have added more & more of them.

I never thought much of the other perennials which were also in our garden when we moved in, such as the 1893 Iris Crimson King, a stand of crocosmia, a gorgeous old rhododendron, several camellia bushes, several hydrangeas, 2 mock orange bushes, a yellow flowering hedge which is 60 ft long, a thicket of pomegranate, etc. etc. Also surviving were many trees, among which were 2 huge scarlet oaks, 2 huge eugeneia trees, a very very large flowering crab apple, a fig forest, and a hawthorne tree, among others. The street trees on our block are English walnut trees, which are now over 110 years old - I know as I have old family pics of them when the house was new and they were about 7 feet tall (and the street was dirt).

All of the non rose perennials just take care of themselves in this climate - I don't pay hardly any attention to them, except to admire them occasionally. They are the ones which have survived in our climate and conditions, and if there were any which needed constant attention they were long gone when we moved in. Lately I have been paying a bit more attention to them. This morning when I went out to get the paper I noticed a nice picture being made by the bright orange blooms of the pomegranite and some crocosmia. Bright orange is NOT a color I like in roses, but in these plants it seems more natural. Pics below.

Does anyone on here garden in an old garden, and have stories or pics of certain plants? I would love to hear/see them.

This is only about 1/3rd of the pomegranate

Close up of the crocosmia - no idea which kind, but very very old

Jackie