My Rose Garden

The photo at the top of this article was taken last July by a company named Air Photo Incorporated. If I had known that my garden was going to be photographed I probably would have forced myself to manicure it, but from that height you can't really see the weeds and at least the grass had been recently mowed. My house is the "L" shaped building at the top of the photo. The gray rectangles above the house and at the bottom of the photo are metal pole buildings. The bottom one is a garage and storage area, the one next to the house contains a workshop, an artist's studio, and my computer room. The large double greenhouse has strips of black shadecloth across the roofs because they help to hold the panels down during our windy winters.

My garden was begun in 1979 and expanded a decade later. The original part of the garden is the densely planted rectangle below the house. The gray circle is a 10 foot wide satellite dish. The dish was originally located outside of the garden, but the newer part of the garden was created around it. When it is eventually replaced by a small dish, another vista across the garden will be opened.

I can't really think about maintaining my entire garden before August, but I am hoping to keep the original part of the garden weeded; having roses may force me to do that. What really inspired me to plant more roses is that a place where I garden was sold, and the new owner is allergic to roses, so I was encouraged to take any roses that I wanted. Most of the roses were a bit old; the only one that I planted in my rose garden was 'Queen Elizabeth' and I added five more young plants of this, my favorite Grandiflora rose. I love the tall, arching growth pattern of this rose, so I have planted three of them in each of rectangular beds of this garden's simple parterre. My little 'Queen Elizabeth' allee will be terminated by 'Fragrant Cloud' a Hybrid Tea which can grow to be five feet tall; this rose is known for its wonderful fragrance. I have planted other Hybrid Teas and Floribundas in my rose garden, but they are just bit players, 'Queen Elizabeth' and 'Fragrant Cloud' will be the stars.