I’ve always loved solving Rows Gardens and have really enjoyed learning to make them. I think this may be my best one yet and will be interested to see what folks think (if you’ve solved earlier efforts).

A note about three of the clues here. One kind of puzzle that has always intimidated me is the cryptic. I rarely attempt to solve them and can’t imagine when I’ll ever be able to create one. BUT…I’ve made a vow to familiarize myself with the different kinds of cryptic clues. As I was reviewing the answers for the ‘Blooms’ in this Rows Garden, I realized that a few lent themselves to cryptic style clueing, so have marked those with a parenthetical CC. I welcome comments on their quality (or lack thereof).

A reminder if you opt to solve here online: the groups of ‘rose blooms’ are not clued in order; you’ll need to use the row answers to figure out where to plant each bloom.

If you prefer solving on paper, pdfs of both regular (bloom categories clued in the order in which they appear in the garden) and thorny versions (blooms clued out of order) are available for download below.