What's Happening Back in the English Garden?

Last time I showed you the English Garden back by our barn, it was April and I had just finished ridding it of weeds, pruning winter damaged canes from the roses, and putting down landscape fabric and a thick layer of mulch.  As time has passed since then, I have kept up with the few weeds that sprouted (mostly evil Nutsedge, which can use its little needle-like tip to sprout right through landscape fabric) and I am keeping to my twice-monthly schedule of spraying fungicide.  With few weeds and little blackspot, the roses, and the garden in general, look really, really good.

This post is full of links.  Highlighted text will take you to either a Help Me Find page with info and photos of a rose or to one of my former posts.

A few of my smaller roses in this garden were killed by the winter wind and cold temperatures.  These are roses that were already struggling as we went into winter, without the root mass like the larger, stronger roses had to store energy and from which to sprout back in the spring ... I'm not surprised that these didn't survive.  Earlier this week, I sifted through my Pot Ghetto, to find likely candidates to fill the spaces.

This garden was designed to contain my collection of David Austin roses, most of which are fairly rare and not easily available.  I have no Austins left in pots (which is a good thing), so I decided to mix in some Noisettes.  There were seven Noisettes in the Pot Ghetto, and only four dead roses in this garden ... with a little bit of rearranging, I made them all fit.

The roses in the photo above are:
1.  "Frazer's Pink Musk"
2.  "Joyce's Unknown Noisette"
3.  unknown Noisette, faded tag
4.  Yellow Seedling, cut back and transplanted from the Rose Field last week 
5.  'Lilian Austin', existing.
6.  Damson tree, replacing the pomegranate that died over the winter.

I moved 'Abraham Darby' from his former location in front of #2 and #3, above, to a spot across the aisle that was vacated last year when 'Sweet Juliet' failed to survive her transplant from a friend's garden.

Here is a view from the other direction:
1.  "Mine Road Noisette"
2.  'The Squire', existing, which is very prone to blackspot and has never before had leaves like this in July.
3.  another mystery Noisette who lost its tag.
4.  "Hollywood Pink Cluster"
5.  'Wildeve', existing.
6.  unknown Noisette, also shown in the first photo.
7.  "Joyce's Unknown Noisette"
8.  "Frazer's Pink Musk"
9.  "Moulton Noisette"
10.  'Morning Mist' which was the subject of THIS post about the severe damage that occurred in this garden last winter.

I moved 'Pretty Jessica', which was a small rose in a large spot, and planted "Moulton Noisette" there instead.

It was a LONG morning's worth of work, but what a great accomplishment!  Moved two roses, planted seven new ones, and this garden is coming along beautifully.  It looks a bit threadbare right now, since the new roses are so small and most of the existing ones are awkward and weird as they recover from last winter.

Speaking of planting:  Most folks are under the impression that we should only plant roses in the spring ... not so, my friends.  I plant potted roses any time during the year that the soil is workable (meaning not frozen or waterlogged).  As long as you have the time to keep an eye on the new ones and make sure that they are kept watered, go ahead and buy those roses and plant them!  (summer and fall are great for sales, too)

In case you didn't see them, or need a reminder, these posts from April will show you what I did to whip this garden back into shape:
Part One
Part Two
The Finale