In between rain showers, I spent the morning of my birthday planting some own root roses in planters in my garden. This photo is a picture of my Golden Celebration rose with raindrops on it to give you an idea how drenched the garden was. May showers are not that common around here. We do occasionally get rained on late spring/early Summer, but this storm took everyone by surprise.

There is a huge banana shaped system that practically extends the length of the Pacific "pond".  This storm or series of storms will give us rain through the weekend and into next week. Which will make my garden very happy. This morning I planted the following roses: Colette climbing rose, Michelangelo rose, the Florentina climbing rose, and Jasmina climbing rose. I am currently collecting climbing roses because we plan to remove the oleanders that are at the border between our two neighbors and replacing them with climbing roses.

Recently, I planted three roses: Creme de la Creme, Apricot Impressionist, and Quicksilver.

This morning, more roses are on the way: Moonlight Romantica, Leonardo Da Vinci, Heirloom rose (a lavender rose related to the Intrigue rose), and Hot Cocoa rose (brownish red roses).

In another post, I will list all the roses I have.

This blog is my garden journal. It took four years to create a beginnings of a great garden.
Four years ago, I was asked what I wanted for Mother's Day and my birthday, and I said I wanted to work on creating a patio space. We had to replace fencing and it looked so good, we asked the person who built it to also build large planter boxes.
My inspiration for my garden plan was many photos of English ottage gardens and Monet's garden at Giverny. My goal was to create a garden full of roses, lilacs, lavender, and a bunch of different pollinator perennials. I wanted a garden full of color that attract birds, bees, butterflies, and humming birds.
The garden's anchor is a huge collection of old english roses from David Austin as opposed to the typical tea roses. I love peonies, but in Marin County our climate is too mild for them.  Old roses with its crowded petals are very like peonies.
My garden is very much a work in progress. I keep adding to it every year. My goal is to be able to go outside to my backyard or my front yard and be assaulted by a riot of color and intoxicating smells of flowers with birds, butterflies, bees, and humming birds buzzing around.