Annapolis Rose Garden

This winter, the crews at E-Landscape have been busy working on further defining a client’s side yard from a turf area into a formal rose garden. The space is accessed from the dining room via french doors and steps that lead down to the garden area. The garden’s central axis is framed with Hick’s Yews, an upright evergreen shrub which forms a hedge separating the front lawn from the rose garden. A new, interior, circular planting bed will be home to the owner’s choice of hybrid tea roses (a long standing passion) and gravel paths will lead guests and gardeners through the space and down steps to the backyard. The path will be defined with steel edging along the perimeter to contain the gravel surface and maintain the perfect arc in the very formal space.

Soil samples have been taken to ensure the proper amendments are added to optimize growing conditions for roses, and the irrigation system was modified so the new bed was on a separate zone. Doing so will allow the homeowner to adjust run times for the specific growing requirements of the roses without having to change run times on the entire system. Since the area had drainage challenges, over 50% of the gravel path serves as a French drain with an extended profile of graded aggregate and perforated pipe to move surface and sub-surface water away from the space.  The drainage profile consists of three sizes of stone – #2 stone on the bottom (crushed stone 1.5″-2″), #57 stone (3/4″ ) in the middle, and a finer decorative gravel as the walking service – all encased with non-woven filter fabric to prevent soil from migrating into the profile. The owner has commissioned a decorative wrought iron gate which will enclose the space and will be visible to passersby on the street.

Please check back in for the completed photos!