Climbers, Raised Beds and Pots

We don't argue. We have "Questions" and "Discussions". We have "Information Exchanges". We have "Opinion Shuffles". And it went like this:

The First Question: "Just how many climbers DID you buy? Why did you buy so many climbers?"
The First Information Exchange: "I'm not sure how many are climbers. Some have to go in pots."
The First Opinion Barely Disguised as a Second Question: "And WHAT are they supposed to climb?"
Note the emphasis on the WHAT.

I read that you should plan out your gardening on paper. So I did. I drew up a little sketch of our property and printed up mini pics of the roses I bought. I drew symbols on each photo so it would be easy to plan where to plant it. A zigzag up the side means it's a climber. A zigzag along the bottom means a hedge. A bigger zigzag means a taller hedge. A circle means the rose can be grown in a pot.

I completely guessed at which roses can be grown in pots though because David Austin's website doesn't list which roses are good for pots. I found out you can get roses for short hedges, medium hedges and tall hedges. You can buy roses specifically to grow completely over pergolas, unsightly sheds, old junked vehicles and relatives. There are climbers, bedding and shrubs. It's a rather ominous sign that David Austin's website does not specifically list any roses suitable for pots. Very ominous indeed. So I figured the smallest plants can handle a pot, right?

We're playing musical rose bushes here. Now that I have the roses, I'm having second thoughts about the pot-ability of some of them. We keep tearing the paper roses off the plan and gluing them down in other spots. At least we're not planting them and then changing our minds and having to dig them up again. Our property would soon look like the home of a whole herd of giant moles. They'd just keep shuffling around the yard, unable to make up their minds where to dig, leaving massive piles of dirt and pits. I'm running out of time, the remaining 9 roses are still languishing in water in the garage and the music is about to stop.

The Second Question: "Where are the raised beds supposed to go?"
The First Stalling Barely Disguised as an Information Exchange: "Well, first we have to figure out which roses go in pots and what the climbers are going to climb. Then we buy the pots n' climbing stuff. Then we put the raised beds under the location of the climbing stuff."

I should have bought Roses for Dummies BEFORE I bought the roses. Years ago. Before we bought the house. Somewhere around the time I learned to walk. As soon as I bought Roses for Dummies, I turned past all the chapters on the history of roses, rose identification, choosing roses etc and went straight to the chapters on climbers, raised beds and pots.

Alas, in buying the roses first, I have created serious Gardening Angst. My nice little Rose Adventure blog should be subtitled "The Angst of a Frantic Gardener." Yup.