OwdPotter's new rose garden

5 years ago I had little or no interest in growing roses. A year or so later, inspired mainly by the knowledge, enthusiasm, and passion for roses of one person in particular on the GW forum, the interest was ignited and I decided to create a rose garden and started a thread to document the journey from fledgling idea to maturity.

The recent demise of the GW forum put an end to my plan and it was suggested to me that I should continue my thread here.

It seems appropriate that I should summarise my progress on this garden project so far and then continue to document from there as originally intended.

Hope this may be of some interest to members new to me here.

 

I'm sure that you and @wiseowl will get along famously!

 

Right. So let’s get cracking eh?

First, some before pics. These are my ‘blank canvas’ pics from just after we moved in. Before anything had been done to the garden, and way before I’d even considered liking roses.

This ‘kitty litter’ area, (as the estate agent referred to it!) is now our terrace area and location of the 1st rose bed (Ph 1), roughly where the triangular rockery was. The area is about 11m long x 5m wide.



What was the main flower bed (now my, still evolving, Ph 3)



and top pergola (Ph 1),


A later photo from Aug 18 looking up steps (Ph2) toward top garden.

 

Oh well done for bringing the rose garden posts over here...it was fun to watch at the other place. I'll see if I do one for my new garden when we move as it is mature but has a lot of potential to change things.

 

One I forgot previously.
This is the 'before' of top garden for reference

 

Fun to see you posting your garden again @OwdPotter .. I'm looking forward to your 'Adelaide d'Orleans' as it's not in my collection, so I shall just have to enjoy it in yours..

 

Thank you Mrs H.
AdO is doing well. It is my most anticipated rose now, and probably one of the main reasons for my wanting to continue this thread. I am looking forward to it's maturing and want to share that.

 

Looking forward to seeing your rose garden develop @OwdPotter. You must have better soil in Teapot town than I do here!

 

Oh, hang on a min there.
It's heavy clay based and stony.
You may want to reconsider that thought after my next update...

 

Thanks @wiseowl, I am looking forward to doing so.

 

The first job in the new garden was creation of the terrace/patio area.

Kitty litter was salvaged and bagged for reuse, existing raised planter box and circular dias were relocated. Existing old and failing walls were demolished, new wall foundations excavated, and approx. 15T of rubble and clay spoil carted to skips on front drive.


New retaining walls and planting beds were then built and patio area excavated to levels


Whilst at the time the building of the patio was not part of my rose garden plan, finding somewhere to stockpile the excavated topsoil for reuse prompted thoughts of eventual purpose for the area and was instrumental to the eventual siting and development of the rose bed.

Completed patio

 

The spoil heap was made up into a temporary bed and planted up, in summer of 2019,

the planting beginning to establish and mature into 2020.


It was at this point, thanks in no small part to the aforementioned GW member, that the rose bug bit…

 

So much work...must have felt great to have it done.

 

A lovely transformation despite the hard work you had to put in OwdPotter.