Let's use this thread to say whatever we want to share about ourselves. It doesn't have to be confined to roses, obviously, and you don't have to compose your post with the utmost care because you can always edit it later or add new posts to tell us more about yourself.

I'll start by saying I'm a happily divorced woman who's beyond retirement age, but spent her money less than wisely and is therefore still working. I have one adult son who makes movies.

I started gardening seriously about 25 years ago when I moved to a small town with no other leisure opportunities that appealed to me. I had dabbled in gardening before that, but just enough to keep my earlier gardens presentable. I'm tempted to say, "besides, I had a life," but that makes my present status sound so pathetic, and it really isn't.

Oddly, I started out as an avid iris gardener and then decided to plant a few more roses to relieve the boredom after iris season had ended. Now, 1500+ rose bushes later, the poor irises are squashed in between the roses.

im a mother of 3 boys 9, 5, 2. i divorced my oldests dad after 4 yrs and married my complete opposite for 5 yrs. its surprisingly great.
it was like i was hit with a brick when i discovered roses.. i had a yellow ht when i was a kid. i still cant figure out what it was . the blooms were huge and clear yellow. i used to take them to school and give them to my teachers.. thorns and all. after that we had a 5 ft hedge of rosa rugosa( i think )out front of the next house. i used to stand in front of that just inhaling the smell. then 15 ys later we buy our first house. and there are these dead looking thorny messes on the side of the house .. dh actually let me pick the house out and bid on it wile he was on the boat(oh i forgot he drives tow boats and is gone 28 days at a time.) so when i took them there e said whats that pointing to the mess. i said i think they are dead roses. it was march lol .when they bloomed i was knocked out. so i immediately goggled roses and made plans to cover my property with them. the first website i came across was heirloom roses.. being paranoid i googled them and came across gardenwatchdog and it was like stepping into a portal into a whole new world. now i dont remember who i was or what i did before i gardened i still only have 50 or so . because im running out of room and im being decisive about witch ones i want to squeeze in .. i bet i can fit another 50.

Me? I am married...no human kids. I have always shared my life with kitties from the time I was a kid to now when I am not a kid anymore.
Plants have been a constant thing too. My Mother was a gardener and she infected me. Roses are a fairly new thing...I started with them about 15 years ago....OGR's are my main interest.
I have trouble sleeping and instead of counting sheep, I count my roses...works fairly well I rarely get to the end.

Hi, Melva. Great to see you.

I have a special request: When you set up your home page, please consider using the photo with the butterfly on your nose as your avatar.

Also, give me some suggestions for more forums. Do you want a special forum for OGR fanatics?

My name is Angie and I am a rose addict! My mother and grandmother both had gardens, so I inherited the genes and I've been garden dabbling all of my life, but began my true gardening life about ten years ago when I became fascinated with daylilies. Talk about your epiphanies! I literally woke up one morning thinking that I had to get some daylilies, went on line to check them out and, voila! (Insert lightbulb here, please) I was blown away by the selections and the colors, particularly the eyed ones. Well, it's been downhill ever since. From DLs, I morphed into hydrangeas for background, then dahlias amazed me by living over here and performing as perennials despite what everyone said, although this winter may prove their undoing. Once I found DG several years ago, I became a hopeless addict. Then along came Zu, Sue, Nery, Dovey, Cottage Rose, and their rose parades and I added another addiction to my growing habit.

BTW, I'm not interested in a cure!

I'm getting to be older than dirt and like Zu, could have retired years ago had I not made some bad investments and watched my SEP IRA go down the drain after 9-11, so here I am still working for the State of NC as a court reporter and yearning, itching and praying for the time I can play in my yard full time. I'm married, 2nd time, to DH for 32 years. Between us, we have 4 children, 9 grandchildren, 4 great-grandchildren and 3 cats. Whew! He likes his grass; I want more flowers. WWIII

Hi I'm Gloria and I live in the great state of Michigan !! I have 6 kids 14 grand kids and 4 1/2 great grand kids the new one should be here any min. shes late as always ;0) I'm married to the love of my life and we have a new puppy hes a pom and his name is Chewy 5 months old
I love my yard !!! and my flowers I'm like most I dabbled in plants most all my life TILL I met a lot of you and you enriched my life beyond my wildest dreams thank you I hope to make new friends and learn as much as I can about every thing I don't think I ever seen a plant I dident want well most any ways ;0)
Gloria

You're finally here, Gloria! So happy to see you. I think this will be a grand new site for all of the usual old stuff, minus the rudeness.

Did you start a thread for Chewy in our companions forum?

Zuzu,
I don't know where the picture of me, and the butterfly is...I will change it when I find it.



Found it!

Hi.. I'm Toni & I guess I'm a bit of a whippersnapper here. My DH & I have been married now for 14 years (just had our anniversary last month.. we haven't killed each other yet, so that's a good thing!). I'm way way way too young to retire and I doubt that I will ever be able to retire. My mom has a black thumb and I can kill indoor plastic plants. However, I seem to have *some* luck (be it good or bad luck, I haven't decided yet) with Roses, so that's why I ripped out my front yard of all it's grass & put in roses. I haven't a tenth of the roses that I would like (ie: Zuzu's home ) as I do not have the space or the money for that. Gardening ("playing in dirt" as my husband puts it) is my late spring/summer/early fall hobby & canaries are my early fall/winter/early spring hobby (not much to do with canaries in the summer as that's when they molt). I will also admit that I'm a crappy gardener as I change my mind way too often. I've owned my home now since Aug 05 and changed the front yard .. 7? times now? However, my hobbies do relax me a lot as I have a pretty icky, stressful job and to be able to dig a hole "and bury a body" as my neighbor puts it is a wonderful thing for me. I also have too many cats, 3 dogs (1 new addition), 4 cockatiels, and I'm down to 6 aquariums. No human kids.. can't afford them (nor could I even have one, even if I wanted one). uh.. oh, and I'm boring. :D

Well, that wasn't boring at all, Toni. I love your introduction -- full of evocative phrases (burying bodies) and lots of humor.

Zuzu - it's true! I live in a VERY quiet cul-de-sac in the SE corner of the Denver metro and our cul-de-sac is only 10 houses deep, so it's pretty small & everyone knows everyone's name. Last spring, we got some new neighbors in right next to me, and, lo & behold, they're BIKERS. I mean, like gang-type bikers. So, being the person that I am, I went up & introduced myself to one of the gentlemen there. Now I'm not a small person, but this guy dwarfs me..he's like 6'7. He explains that his particular biker gang isn't like what you see on TV and that they're pretty quiet people and that he actually works with the local police department. That took a MAJOR load off my mind and so I went along my way, buying roses by the dozen (almost literally). I was in the process of ripping out the grass in the front yard & digging this huge holes to plant 6 roses when one of the other biker guys comes over to see what I'm doing. "Whatcha doin', burying bodies?" he asks. Well, in a sense, I *am* burying bodies.. bodies of roses. Said "eeyup" to him. He then states that those are awfully small bodies to be burying and, me being the smartalleck I am, I stated that, "Nyah, I had to cut 'em up into smaller pieces so they'd fit." He looked at me like I was a major weirdo (big surprise there) and skidaddled back to his house. Of course, about an hour later he saw me pull all the roses out of the garage and start to plant them & THEN he realized what I was doing. But, seriously! After that, whenever I was digging in the yard, he'd ask if I had a bad day @ work & was burying someone who'd made me mad. :D

thats funny .. i get the ole stink eye from the neighbors. once i heard them say she likes to dig in the dirt dont she.. ive not liked them ever since.. its true though lol they also whacked my wisteria to a nub . it was close to the fence and they reached over and looks like they topped it off with a chainsaw. i hope that stimulates the plant to send runners all over their yard!

I had a neighbor like that once, Dana. He had just moved in and, after making small talk with me while I lovingly pruned a big rambler for about 20 minutes, he waited until I had gone inside and reached over the fence with loppers to chop it off at ground level.

I saw him do it from the kitchen window, so I ran out and asked him what he was doing. He said: "There are two things I hate -- cats and flowers."

Well, welcome to the neighborhood anyway, you jerk! He didn't stay here long, but he managed to alienate everyone before he moved.

Zuzu, I think I would have spent that night in jail... after whacking the sap over the head with his own loppers!

wow at least mine are passive aggressive. lol
we have big trees in the neighborhood and every one has one in the front and back,, she always throws the limbs over the fence on my side .. im like how do you know they are from my tree. everyone gets the limbs out of their own yards. she just thinks her tree dosnt drop limbs

Believe me, Evey, I wanted to, but I have to watch my step around cat haters.

wow I'm glad I live where I do !! every one comes to my house to see what I'm doing and to smell my "air" I love it here and if I need a big job done I buy beer and they all come to help and visit works for me ;0)
Gloria

mom kind of does that,, it will be like hey ya wanna come over for supper. when we get there its.... can you help me get the crab grass out of the iris bed.
will work for food i guess

Most of my neighbors are great. That guy was just an anomaly. We had to be polite to him because he was the new boyfriend of a really nice neighbor we all liked. She developed cancer a couple of years later, though, and he took off as soon as she told him the news. Staying true to form, to the end. After she died, he came back and tried to sue her family for part of the estate.

some people !!!! I guess they all think of me as the mom or grand mom we are the oldest in the neighborhood I'm going to be 60 this year and the little mister will be 67 I dont think I'm old though he might be though LOL
Gloria