restoring a vintage rose garden

 

i thought it would be interesting to see just how this old rose garden has evolved from a tangled bramble into what it is today.  have you heard the old adage...the first year the garden sleeps, the second year it creeps and the third year it leaps?  even though the garden is well over 100 years old we've been here 3 years reviving it.



it's hard to tell by the pictures but the roses were growing into each other.  they had to be pruned very hard to untangle them.  this made me nervous because they all seemed so weak and i didn't want to add more stress to them but it was the only option.

we knew for a fact that this garden had been very loved at one time.  gertrude just couldn't keep up with it and so it fell into a state of neglect.

finally cleared and detangled we started placing big limestone slabs that we found buried under leaves in another part of the garden.

we ran out of limestone slabs so larry hauled in these broken pieces of concrete.

we also thought we would be able to grow our vegetables here too but we didn't realize just how shady this area would get in the summer.  the concrete edging was recycled from the front garden and painted black.

we eventually took it out and it wound up back in the front garden.  larry loves little projects like this.

we fed the roses and mulched them heavily with homemade compost.

this is the garden at its peak during the second year, a big improvement.  it didn't produce many blooms at all, in fact there was only one bloom cycle.  but we were ecstatic that they were living.

these photos were taken yesterday.  you can see just how tall the roses have gotten.  i'm 5'6 and some of them are as tall as me.  you really can't tell by the pictures but there are hundreds of blooms and hundreds of buds waiting to bloom.  i think they have fully recovered.   we removed the limestone slabs and moved them to the front garden.  we found all these round stepping stones throughout the property to replace them. 

when we took out the veggie patch and we started placing all my boxwoods here instead.  it's also where my orchids spend their time.  the low growing ground cover is really pretty and delicate and will die off when it gets hot and then we will mulch again.  i like it, i think it gives it an old englishy garden feel, exactly the look i was going for.

and it seems like the more i cut the more they bloom.

xo

janet