New Roses For the Front Garden

This was one project i did in the end of 2018 that will hopefully look nice in 2019, and reminds me of the Austin fling everything I get home! No current pictures... because they look like rose bushes in the winter. 

One of the plants i saw in Austin that I wanted to get for myself were these "Livin' Easy" roses. Here they are in the garden of Kirk Moring - in person, the orange popped out, and the smell was amazing. 

From Kirk Moring's garden

Since i'm trying to apply the lessons I learned in Austin (in addition to buying all the plants!), i figured that Livin' Easy would work well in the front garden. The flower color would play off the orange lantanas. Roses do ok here, although in general they need a bit more water, especially in the sun. However, i have some roses on the north side of the house that survive and bloom really well. So I knew that if i could give them some shade, they'd do fine. 

Coincidentally, this bed in the front garden needed an update anyway. Its in the shade during our hot afternoons (facing due east), and i installed drip irrigation a number of years ago. The current occupants were a opuntia and a Black Knight butterfly bush. The Opuntia was doing fine, but leaning over the side walk. The butterfly bush had been doing fine, but took a big hit during the house painting and really didn't recover. 

Current residents right before being evicted...

The sad buddleia

I'm actually not entirely sure what happened here - the last few years, this plant was 6+ feet tall. My guess is a combination of broken irrigation, bugs (something ate its leaves - every year) and rough handling during painting finally got it.

Speaking of broken irrigation...

Had to fix where the old sprinkler head converted to drip

Do not ask me why the previous owners installed old fashioned pop up sprinklers in a bed filled with rocks. Even weirder is the fact that there is some major plumbing equipment another foot under the ground here. A part of the rock mulch is actually laying on an access hatch i installed to make it easier to service that in future...

Of course, before i started any of this, i had to source Livin' Easy. I probably spent a good 2 months checking every orange rose i saw, and checking online. I had just decided to wait until bare root season and ordering online, when i randomly checked some roses at the big box store, and found 'Livin Easy'.

One on one side

I had just said "i'm not buying any plants today", when i, of course, ended up with plants. Oh well - at least now i have the rose I want!

and one on the other side!

All the rocks put back, and some bark mulch (the same as in the rest of the garden! I learned!) and everything looks cleaned up...

Now grow!

 These pictures are a bit too bight, but the roses did give me some immediate gratification in the form of flowers...

they are more orange in real life!

 So pretty...

a little bit better color match to RL

These are (probably) the last plants I'll get to plant this year. They will get a bit of supplemental hand watering the first few months (and during heat waves) but so far they are doing alright. And now i have one of my Austin Plant Lusts in my own garden!