Designing a rose garden is a detailed and delightful process. This is the first of a two-part post documenting the many phases of one special project located on a hilltop in Lafayette, CA.

My client wanted all colors of roses in a new garden

that would be situated on a slight incline with a full, ideal-for-roses, eastern exposure.

Since my garden was in full bloom at the time, its roses inspired a graduated color scheme

that I presented with the above sketch. My clients loved the design and I was 

soon planning for and acquiring its many roses, as shown in this working sketch. The original plan called for a center arbor that was nixed in favor of continuous planting.

The final color scheme became a progression of white, pink, yellow, peach and red between the two stairways, and magenta in the bed to the far right. After three years, my client wanted more color in the white section. So we added a few pink roses in the first tier and both a red and pink rose in the top tier.

Here's the original rose list 

and said roses patiently awaiting planting day.

BEFORE AND AFTER

The original space.

Instead of replacing the fencing, we camouflaged it with custom trellis work, good for climbing roses. Aren't the moss rock retaining walls magnificent?

One year later the garden is thriving.

Here's the garden last spring as the roses are just coming into to bloom.

In Part 2 I'll show you the magenta section and some of the companion plants.