A Visit to the Garden of Kim Borland

By Bobbie Reed, CR

On a rainy summer day in Gwinnett, I had the chance to visit Kim Borland's garden for the first time. The first thing I learned is that she has been driving a very long way to our meetings, past Rabbittown and Gainesville – far enough that the rain had cleared when I got there.

Kim has lived at her present home on a hill in Clermont for 15 years, after growing up in the area. She shares 5 acres and a rambling country house with her husband Lewis, daughters Becky and Mandy, and a menagerie including dogs Chunky, Izzy, and Darby, cat Otis, bird Bunny, and a python named Cherokee. Kim works as a nurse in Gainesville.

Her love affair with roses began 10 years ago, when she was given a Peace rose bush for Mother's Day. As she says, "It kind of snowballed from there." She selects roses for color and form, and has mostly hybrid teas. Her rose garden is modest in size – just enough roses so that she can tend them easily when she gets home from work. And when work is stressful, she finds the roses therapeutic.

Her roses are indeed lovely, as the accompanying photos show. She likes purples, like Blue Girl and Stainless Steel, and bright reds, yellows, and oranges, like Hot Cocoa, Sunset Celebration, Honey Dijon, and St. Patrick. She has both old favorites, like Tropicana and Double Delight, and newer exhibition favorites like Rina Hugo and Veteran's Honor. She also cares for her mother's roses, which include several Knock Outs, Fire & Ice (which she says is absolutely gorgeous), and Full Sail.

In addition to taking in stray animals, Kim adopts stray plants, and nurses them back to health. Some are potted plants, but there is also a long strip of daylilies along one side of her yard that were "passed along" to her. As she stands on her long front porch, she talks about the way she wants to develop her gardens. She's interested in adding climbers and shrubs and old garden roses, and has encouraged her neighbors add some roses to their yard, too.

Kim joined the Greater Gwinnett Rose Society in July 2002, and joined the American Rose Society a year or so later. By now, she's ready to move on to the next level of membership, and decided it was time to become a Consulting Rosarian. So she searched out a CR school in South Carolina this summer, and passed the test. That makes Kim our newest Consulting Rosarian.

She has plans, too – she's really ready to talk to a lot of folks in her community about adding roses to their gardens, to show them that roses can be a beautiful addition to their gardens. Meanwhile, she says she doesn't get many rose visitors, and would be glad to see more of us!