David Austin rose bed

I planted this bed of David Austins in March 2011. I purchased most of them as grafts from Pickering Nurseries, one of my favorite rose online vendors. Included in here are Golden Celebration, Abraham Darby, Charlotte, The Mayflower, The Dark Lady, Heritage, L.D. Braithwaite, Christopher Marlowe and a band of William Shakespeare 2000. (I know, I know...way to many for this space...I'm going to spread them out this year). This is what the bed looked like around Memorial Day 2011:

Here's how it looks now, before pruning:

That long cane sticking out at the top on the far right is from a Golden Celebration that I should have pruned during the summer but didn't get around to it. The 2 plants on the far left are Rose of Sharons that I'm going to pull out this year.

My favorite from this bed so far is The Dark Lady. Huge, fat, fuschia blooms. No scent, but still lovely and produces a ton of blooms. There are two fuschia plants in the below photo. The Dark Lady is in the middle (you can see how big the blooms are) compared to the shorter L.D. Braithwaite. In my garden, the color is pretty similar. (The stuff in front of the bricks that I can't seem to get rid of is oregano, this used to be my herb garden).

In the bed is also 1 own-root William Shaespeare 2000 that I got from Heirloom Roses 2 years ago. Will hasn't done too well yet, but I can't give up on him since he's still a baby. He only gave me 2 blooms last year. Hoping this year is the year.

I got The Mayflower because it was supposed to be pretty disease-resistant. Ummm, no. Not here at least and the very small blooms ball and don't open. I have three of them and they will probably be shovel-pruned in March.