Monday, March 12, 2012

REDESIGNING A TOWNHOUSE ROSE GARDEN


  

Do you live in a townhouse?  Where do you grow your roses?  Some says in pots but I rather grow them in the ground and the roses like it better. 

We bought our townhouse in 2004 and during construction, I requested roses to be planted in my yard.  They did and when it first bloomed, I found out that they were all Blushing Knock Out Roses.  At that time, we were still living in New York and we used the townhouse down south as a vacation home.  We came down four times a year and only spent two weeks at a time so I did not care how my roses looked like.

A year ago, we moved south permanently.  I noticed that they were not maintaining the roses as I would like them to do.  The Blushing Knock Out Roses looked terrible.  Knock Out Roses are the easy maintenance roses but they never pruned them and I didn’t think they were even fertilized so I decided to redesign the front yard.  I always had a rose garden and the fact that I live in a townhouse won’t deter me from having a rose garden.  The Homeowners Association was supposed to do all the outside work but since they were not doing it, I plan to do mine.  I’m embarrassed of the way the front yard looks.  After all, I’m a Master Rosarian and my roses do not show it.  Basically, I didn’t change the layout.  I just changed the plants.  I dug out all the Blushing Knock Out Roses and some terrible-looking shrubs.