Thanks Rita! I am lovin' it!

Toni, Denver's Dream always looks great. You should see my Mom's, she has it in a large pot and gives it fertilizer in early spring, when I was last visiting her, it was in full glorious bloom, a truly beautiful plant just covered in those rich orange blooms! Puts mine to shame. Well, all her roses put mine to shame!

No one would ever think that's a new garden, Sue. The work you've done in the past year is phenomenal, and you didn't even start out with a blank slate, which would have been difficult enough. You had to begin by removing the existing boring landscaping and then start over. You're amazing!

Actually, I am tired!

Truly gorgeous!

Sue, my first thought was, it wasn't that long ago when you were waiting to move there! you have made an incredible garden in a short time.
The roses you showed are my favorites. I love the orange pink blends. Even in clothing, that's the color I buy.
Do your iris normally bloom at the same time as the first rose flush?
Ours did for the first time this year and it was pretty colorful. I've never tried to coordinate iris and rose colors because they are usually sequential so I had some clashes. The clematis are the main show now, but the daylilies are starting.
Do you have before and after pics of the yard? It looks like everything matured so quickly. Did you plant mature plants?

Sue...oh my. I think I need half of those!

zuzu said:No one would ever think that's a new garden, Sue. The work you've done in the past year is phenomenal, and you didn't even start out with a blank slate, which would have been difficult enough. You had to begin by removing the existing boring landscaping and then start over. You're amazing!

I also that cafe rose.

Sue: amazing!

Thanks All!

Cindi, I had several iris start early and others along with the roses but most of these iris are all new to me as of last fall so we'll see how they go next year.

Here are a few pictures from last May, a few weeks after moving in:
On left, before removal of overgrown shrubs, the right, shrub removal opened it up to the green belt in the back


Below was last Oct. 2011


These shots were taken March 15 of this year. Things sure have grown fast since it got warmer!


And then again, how it looks now, the left one is taken from the same spot as the March 15 one from above.

Wow. Just wow.
You did have good bones to start with, so that's really nice! I'm impressed!

Yes, the crushed granite paths were already in place and a drip system was already there but that is now being totally redone as much of the original wasn't working anymore.

All those roses pictures are beautiful! Thanks for sharing them with us. I have 3 rose bushes, two were planted by previous/original owner and I have no Idea what the name of them are. My question is that they do well where they are, getting the morning and early afternoon sun. I wonder which is best for roses; morning or afternoon sun? I sure would be nice to try some in the front of the house, where they would get afternoon sun and where of my neighbors would be able to enjoy looking at them.

All this talk of pepper plants made me buy two more!. I already have one red bell pepper. But I was at Home Depot having to buy pots so I looked at their peppers. I bought a Cubanelle and a Fajita Bell pepper. The sign claims Fajita Bell is a good one for stir fry, with heat but not too much. Very daring for me as I never buy hot peppers!

How many of the mature shrubs did you keep from the previous owners, Sue?

Pippi, in Maryland, afternoon sun would be great. Really, the more sun, the better.
Rita, those stir fry peppers are excellent and I think you'll be glad you tried them. Even if you don't eat them all, the bright colors add to a flower bed!
Sue, how many acres do you have there? Do you have any grass at all, or is it all ornamental beds?

pippi21 I have several roses in full sun I think the biggest share of them like the sun I know mine do

Trish, we kept the large shrubs all around the perimeter, they are large enough to give us privacy from the neighbors.

Cindi, it's only 1/2 acre but that's huge for me coming from a small city. There was a lawn in the back along the patio, it was sloped, we leveled it and added new sod. If you look at my blog, you can see photos of it. We currently have it surrounded by that plastic orange fencing to keep my daughters dogs off of it until they move out. Hubby doesn't want it ruined, which they would do. They damage enough of the rest of the garden.

Sue, I know what you mean. My 5 houses before this one were city lots and now we're on 10 acres and I have not adjusted. I'm still planting rows of shrubs 30 feet out from the house because that's the distance that's comfortable to me. my husband likes the long view and openness. (Fairways, actually.) Open, to me, is "exposed". To him, open is better security. I have left the view to the west open. The nearest house that direction is 1 mile away so we get a fabulous sunset view over the pond and beyond. The other directions have houses so I have shut them off with trees and shrubs. I grew up in a wooded, hilly area, and even after 25 years down here where it's fairly flat and open, I still try to make it a woodland.
Flowering shrubs are ideal landscaping to me. I am so glad kansas Forestry sells wildlife bundles of shrubs for a reasonable price. You are lucky the previous owners planted some so you have a head start. Our previous owners allowed trash trees to take over, and removing diseased elms and cottonwoods is quite the chore.

One of these days I'm going to do another "before/after" photo session to see the mess I bought & the mess I've created. :D 10 acres. you know how many roses I could plant there??? Yikes!!

Not much blooming here yet but Be Bop is starting the show.






Mosly they look like this. Not quite ready to bloom.



I sprayed all the roses today with a combo of the systemic fungicide and liquid fish emulsion fertilizer. Smells like fish in the garden now.

One of the sunblaze series mini roses blooming.

I will have several gorgeous gorgeous blooms to upload from the rose gardens at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I have never seen such beautiful, enormous blooms. Unbelievable.