Rose Garden History

My parents moved to this location in 1971.  There were a number of roses in the yard along the walkway in the backyard.  While my mother loved roses, she didn't want the roses right next to the walkway.  Not sure why?  Maybe she didn't want to stumble into them after a few beers? That sounds logical to me.  So the roses were transplanted out back by the fence line and just grew without much care for about 10 years.  Somewhere around 1983 my father got a real bad case of poison ivy.  He was really angry and found that the poison ivy was growing inside the roses bushes.  So my father ripped out all of the Rose bushes and the poison ivy and threw it all in the back of the station wagon.  I still remember him stuffing it all in the dumpster behind his National Guard building.  He did leave 2 bushes behind.  One red by the back gate and his favorite White Roses in the back corner.   Sadly, my father passed away in 1984. By the mid to late 80's  the rose began to grow back.  I decided to transplant them inside the yard.  We had a huge dirt area left from when my father dug and installed a swimming pool a few years earlier.  I felt some connection with my father the swimming pool dirt and the roses.  Also, my mom loves roses and loved the idea of a rose garden.  We transplanted the roses inside the yard and in transplanting them I had split them into multiple rose, mostly by accident.  Now there were 20+ roses bushes and we added some store bought roses.  Unfortunately, the location was bad between 2 trees and the garden was not cared for properly.  I would keep weeds out and i did some fertilizing, but disease and insect control was lacking.  Many of the new store bought roses died off due to not enough sun, disease, insects, and some other bad locations.  Eventually, one tree was cut down  in the late 90's and another was removed by hurricane Isabel in 2003.  I transplanted some into better locations, began applying frequent fertilizers, disease, and insect sprays and the roses keep on growing.  There various religious statues in the garden.  One large statue of the Virgin Mary, I often pray to for guidance and for a healthy garden and I will always remember and Love my father and all of his hard work in the yard and for his family.  I dedicate the garden to the Virgin Mary and my father Charles Reinhardt, Jr.  I have also added some bird feeders  where I observe many birds  in the area.  Below are some pictures from today in the Rose Garden.