Curious why these rocks were there

and here

someone took the time to peg these instead of just shearing them down like they used to do.

And something new going on here

The new structure will be covered soon

someone's making sure that every rose gets enough water

Louis Philippe was looking fine and full.

There are more pictures of the arboretum and flowers on the CA gardening forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fullerton Arboretum Visit

this turtle let me sit right next to him

So inspiring Kitty! My roses are all mostly pretty small so I can't wait until they get big enough to work with them in the spring. Did anyone enlighten you as to why there were rocks in that bed? It seems so odd they aren't anywhere else.

Love the turtle! Roses are much like good wine, satisfying when enjoyed alone, even better when shared with friends. :)

Josh

This garden used to be old HT beds. Then they planted antiques instead to compliment the Dr. Clark's Victorian house next to the roses. For a while, no one knew how to prune the antiques and they were not doing well but since last year, they have been well taken care of and new roses were planted in front of the antique house and also in the area where herbs were. This will be one year since many new roses were planted and I'm looking forward to seeing them in bloom. I'll just have to wait and see what happens with the rocks. A guess would be that it would keep people from stepping in the beds but I would think that the thorns would keep people out. They look really large to be mulch don't you think?

Rocks seem oddly placed. Do they do weddings there? That is often a money maker for gardens, which means they can afford to hire someone to make the roses look good in order to get wedding business. At any rate, nice to see roses well cared for. And today, rained upon. :^)

The new rose beds are next to the lawn where tables are set up for weddings and other events. There are new Austin roses in front of the Victorian house where people take pictures. The arboretum is having new lighting installed all over the gardens and it looks labor intensive. All of this should make it nicer for weddings. The rocks are odd. I would have gone with organic mulch or some low groundcover. I don't think it's because of rabbits because some roses have poultry netting cages for that.

I always keep a few rocks handy for the deer.