Urban Rose Garden

Winter can be a bleak time of year in the northeast and I must admit that for a lifelong New Englander I am not fond of the cold at all. This means that rather than skiing, snowshoeing, or participating in any of the other outdoors activities that require enduring the cold I am much more likely to be found inside by the fire place looking through seed catalogues or David Austin's latest "book of roses." By February however I am feeling a bit of cabin fever and we are usually plotting our next adventure. Also being stuck indoors with so much cold outside usually inspires big dreams of what the garden will bring this current season, and so the two will usually marry into some type of garden experience, whether its the Boston Flower show in March or hunting for indoor plants or seed starting goodies early. This year i have planned to experience the many gems (some hidden and others not so much) throughout New England, and by gems I mean rose gardens. Our travels thi...

I think we all have certain expectations of roses when we begin a rose garden. More so than any other plant, everyone has an image of what a rose should be or what they would like it to be in their garden and there is probably some piece of nostalgia that dictates what that image is. For me it was a classic long stem red rose with a sumptuous fragrance. The nostalgia may have been linked to my love of Alice in wonderland as a kid. I was off to find the perfect red rose to begin my rose garden and I knew that meant reading reviews and learning a thing or two about roses. Along with learning about hybrid teas, I found the rose- “Mr. Lincoln,” that sounded like he would fit the bill nicely and upon checking into my local big box store, I found an entire display of Mr. Lincoln roses. It was kismit and I purchased 2 of these to add to my newly designed bed. At this point I must admit I still didn’t know that I was planting a full rose garden and Mr. Lincoln ended up in a bed with a...

Where do I start? Nearly five years ago I was fortunate to purchase my first house and along with it I gained my first garden. My original interest in gardening was limited to an interest in pretty Japanese trees and vague memories of planting marigolds with my parents growing up. In fact I don’t have fond memories of beautiful roses in my grandmother’s garden as most inspired gardeners seem to have. To my knowledge neither of my grandmothers gardened at all. So five years ago I was ecstatic to be purchasing my first house with my husband. A feat I honestly didn’t think that I would ever experience. We were particular about the neighborhood we would buy into, and of course wanted something that suited our tastes and of course in our price range. One factor we never considered was the yard. In fact, when we were shopping there was several feet of snow on the ground, so even had we looked at yards we wouldn’t have been able to see very much. After several months of settlin...