Question
I would like to start a small rose garden as a surprise for my husband. What do you recommend?

Answer
Here it is Rose Week all over the USA and you want to start a rose garden.  Your timing is perfect.

But you realize, Roses are like their own full time hobby.  There's a reason allexperts.com has a section completely devoted to the subject of Roses.

If you really are sure you want to tackle this, your first step is to go to the American Rose Society (www.ars.org) and look at their Rose photographs and text. I love to check the Rose of the Month.

My favorites are most fragrant and I like to grow things that are not going to be in next year's Jackson and Perkins catalog.  I am still trying to find a good brown rose, which is imported from Australia and New Zealand as a cut flower for bouquets and appears in my office around Secretary's Day every year on someone's desk.  As you can see, I do like to be different.  

So-called "blue" roses are not true Delphinium blue.  But they are a lovely shade of violet or periwinkle.  I love them.

This all adds up to Tea Roses and those make up most of what I have.  I also have a favorite old rose called Mme. Isaac Perreire, which is not seen very often and blooms abundantly every spring.  I bought my mother years ago a rose called Chrysler Imperial, named after the ancient car the year it was introduced.  And I have inherited two old bushes my grandmother grew at her house in Brooklyn, 75 years ago.  And others.  This is my personal taste.  You have to decide what matters to you.

Maybe you want color all season from your roses.  My rose season is very short.  In a month, they will be unsightly sticks in the middle of nowhere; they will still need spraying, fertilizing and watering, and I will be checking them in the dark at night with a flashlightfor bugs.  There will be a few blooms here and there.  But the prettiest section will be perennials, annuals and Lilies.  

You may want flowers for cutting.  That's a whole other story that I can follow up on, just ask.

You may want color for the whole summer -- some roses will do that.  

Or you may want miniature roses to line a path, or as low growing plants in front of lilies or other flowers.  

Look at the ARS's Rose of the Month section.  It will show you roses new and old and describe them so well you would think you were holding it in your hand.

Thornless?  Climbing?  Double?  People have all kinds of reasons for growing roses.  Tell me exactly what you would like, and I'll suggest a dozen for you to consider and where you can order them.  I'll tell you how to care for them once you've got them in the ground and how to minimize your problems.  Ask and you shall receive.  It's one of my favorite things to do.