for the love of roses and other gardeny goodness

The thaw we're having here is making me yearn for spring, even though I know that winter is far from over.

This week the David Austin catalog finally came in the mail.  Ah, pure bliss.  I love roses.  Flowers in general, really, but roses are special.  All those petals.  Those glorious fragrances.  I know most roses don't smell, but the good ones, do.  Every time I come across a flower, I must stick my nose in the petals, often to disappointment, but always with hope.

 

Matthias and I bought our house in 2004.  There was already some nice landscaping.  Rhododendrons, azaleas, hydrangeas, peonies, a huge lilac, a couple fairy roses, forsythia, some hostas and a row of lovely Japanese Kerria bushes (they have masses of small, yellow rose-like flowers).  Most of the backyard, though, was grass.  One of the reasons I wanted to move into a house was so that I could have a garden.  I'd been gardening in my apartment with every inch of window jammed with flowerpots and Matthias and I had also tried growing a plot in a community garden for a couple years, but having a house and yard was different.  Every year after we moved in we dug up more and more of the grass in order to plant more gardens.  This is when my rose obsession exploded.  I could always find room for one more rose plant.  I couldn't tell you how many are in the Cleveland garden right now, but the number's pretty high.

 

People tend to think that roses are a lot of work, but really, I've found that they're not really much different than anything else you grow.  And the rewards... flowers, flowers, flowers!

Our yard has an interesting shape.  Out the back door we have a deck and the main bit of the yard is bordered by the house on one end and the garage on the other.  Our house is on a corner and our backyard is entirely fenced.  The fence on the road side is lined with privet hedge so it's fairly private.

 

Behind the garage is a narrow strip of yard that leads to the back part of the backyard.  I imagine that back area as a secret garden.  It's surrounded by the garage and bushes and trees.  That's where we put our checkerboard patio and that's where we grow our vegetables.

 

The garden represents a lot of hard work and I don't even want to know how much money.  It's strange that it both is and isn't mine anymore.  I am going to miss those roses.