Susan and Bill Young have a beautiful farm overlooking the Mountains in Western North Carolina. Susan has an interior design and decorative accessories shop called Summer Place, in Cashiers, North Carolina. Bill is a builder and designed and built the house that Mary Palmer lives in today.
Susan always wanted a formal garden on the upper terrace. Dargan Landscape Architects designed the master plan for the property when it was built.
As things go with construction, the terrace was a little bit tricky because of a boulder retaining wall. This made alignment of the formal garden a challenge!
Because Susan loves bright colors for her beautiful interiors, specific rose varieties of old-fashioned heritage were chosen. Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham Texas is our favorite rose provider, for clients all over the country. We like the Antique Rose stock is just that it’s hardy and durable and has beautiful classical forms and colors.
Some of the rose varieties chosen were:
- Climbing Rose Prosperity
- American Beauty
- New Dawn
- Graeme Thomas
- Shrub roses including Pinky, Souvenir da la malmason and others.
Over 60 roses were planted in the small parterre rose garden just after Mother’s day. This is the frost free date for North Carolina. Of course, as luck would have it, the temperature went to 30° with wind chill the day the roses were installed on May 18!
A deep planting technique used in Canada by Ofc. Doug Green was employed in the installation. This hopefully will protect the delicate roots and stems of the roses.
Another challenge encountered was that of rabbits! Rabbits are very happy here as are the sheep and the donkeys. Therefore Fencing was necessary to protect the roses.
The existing hemlock hedge is treated yearly for Woolly Adelegifs and was sheared to create an oeil-de-boeuf (or bull’s eye) that is framed by a Rhododendron and Laurel arch.
