Actually, the bed is three feet wide. It used to be eight inches ... for real. This is my second attempt at fencing Mrs. J's roses. After I widened the bed, I had put deer fencing around each rose. That was a horrible idea because when I opened the cages, they would try to close back up with me and the rose inside the cage ... not good. Also, the lawn used to slope down to the top of the block wall.
This what I started with ... I have not added any roses to the bed except for 'Mint Julip' where Mrs. J had lost one of the roses she had planted.
Before I widened the bed
I've got breaks in the fencing on the lawn side of the bed in front of each rose. (See the photo above) The fencing is short enough so that I can open the "gate" all the way over the lawn and can step down into the bed to work, so I have plenty of room to move around.
The mass of roots for a rose will shrink if the top growth shrinks. These roses were unprotected from the deer for years and were just limping along. I had to re-work all of the soil and get some compost both in the soil and on top to keep water from immediately draining out of the weep holes of the block walls. Since the roots had shrunk, I had plenty of room to work without damaging the remaining roots. Of course, now they have expanded as has the top growth.
It will always be difficult to work on the street side of the plants, but that can't be helped.
I can't make the bed wider, so even tho' the roses are headed towards being much larger, anything that sticks out of the fencing will be deer candy.
I would have never planted the roses there, but they have probably been there since the 1970s or 1980s. Of course, Mrs. J went out and covered them every night ... well, until she got too old to care for them. She was in her 90s when I bought the house.
As long as I can keep the roses healthy, I am not going to fret about not being able to have a wider bed. I did get rid of a hunk of lawn
(It's really weeds pretending to be lawn.)
I got rid of another hunk of lawn when I planted the star magnolia. Then when I do the foundation planting, more will disappear. I've got enough projects to keep me going for a while. Of course, I am open to all suggestions.
Smiles,
Lyn
