Question
I bought several beautiful roses but my garden is full of ivy, I am afraid to plant the roses because I worry that the ivy will overpower them.  I also hear that it is almost impossible to get rid of.  Any suggestions?

Answer
Hi Elizabeth-
This is what I would do.  First, pick a spot to create a slightly raised bed.  If you have three roses - a spot about 6-8 ft. in diameter should be fine.  Or if you want you could create a pattern like this below with four roses:
            X
          X X X
            X
You could use paver bricks going around in a circle, (or square if you prefer) with some time of border brick (or curved scalloped brick pieces sold at Lowes or Home Depot).  Put up as much of the ivy in this spot that you can.  Dig holes in the desired locations.  Buy some weed mat (black) at a Garden Center (or Lowes) and lay it on top and overlapping the dirt around the planted roses - but keep the weed mat within the border of the bricks surrounding the planted roses.  Cover the weed mat with mulch or bark.  Dig a wide trench around the border bricks.  Fill it in with bark or lava rocks.
You could also used a raised bed which is higher - perhaps 2 ft. or more.  It would be hard for the ivy to spread unless it climbed the sides of the raised bed then all you'd have to do it used hedge clippers to keep it in bounds.  You could use railroad ties to create a raised bed or bricks layered on top of each other.
Another idea is to use very large containers to plant the roses in (like an old barrel or large plastic pot).  They sell the large plastic pots cheap at Walmart, but you could check your local Garden Center too.
I don't recommend using a chemical vegetation killer because it might poison the spot and it contaminates the ground water.

Planting roses can be hard work but remember the payoffs - beautiful roses for the garden or vase for years to come! I have about 90-100 roses and every day I cut a bouquet for a vase in my home, and they smell wonderful and brighten my day so much.

Hope this helps.
Have fun smelling the roses!
Carlene
aka the Flowerlady