Bumping this down. We had 32 people and a beautiful day. Gosh, we need rain, but a sunny 70 degrees was delightful. There are a couple of GWers in this photo (not me, since I took the photo!), but a range of other folks, some new to helping out in our garden - some college kids, a high schooler and her mom, and others who heard about our garden and wanted to join the fun. We will continue pruning Tues and Sat mornings unless (we hope) we are rained out. We usually prune till Valentine's Day but roses are leafing out already, so it's a race to get it done. Anita

We looked at that rose yesterday and think the tree is probably "only" 50-60 feet high,and the rose is going up 40 feet or a bit more. There's still room at the top for the rose to climb, and we believe that it will reach the top, and cascade down once it has no more place to grow. Ann, I think you are right about the microclimate. The cemetery was originally a sand hill, created from the Sacramento river. Its high ground, in a city second only to New Orleans in risk of flooding, is why the cemetery was established there in 1850. Up at the top of the hill, where the banksiae is planted, is the sandiest soil of all. The curator has always suspected that the water table is pretty high. When we have removed roses, we are sometimes astonished at how big and deep the roses grow. I told some of the sheriff's crew to remove an Alberic Barbier, and went to lunch. When I checked on them, they were standing chest-high in the hole, still digging! It is a cemetery, for heaven's sake - we don't want to dig TOO deep! - so I had them stop, even though there were still substantial roots to be seen. Many of our roses grow bigger in the cemetery than elsewhere. We don't prune hard, we rarely feed, and we do usually provide regular, weekly water. But it must be something about the microclimate/microsoil. A funny thing about that banksiae - it's only been there a dozen years, and I'm told that a volunteer cut it off a few years after it was planted. All of that growth is from the last eight or nine years. Anita

One of our Open Garden guests liked the Holiday Inn downtown, which is not too far away. There are some wonderful gardens in Sacramento. Right in the cemetery, we have a native plant demonstration garden, and Hamilton Square, a perennial garden that was recently featured in Pacific Horticulture. They've also written about the Land Park WPA Rock Garden, another perennial wonderland, which is nearby. There are modern roses in the Peace Garden in Capitol Park (and a wonderful collection of trees in the Park, too), and more moderns at McKinley Rose Garden. You could definitely find plenty of gardening diversions here in Sacramento! UC Davis has the botanical gardens, too... Anita Here is a link that might be useful: Gardens of the Historic City Cemetery

Hi Ingrid, Well, yes, the last year has been rather disastrous healthwise - the predictable aftermath I suppose of taking 3 trips to England in 4 years to help my sister with our elderly parents, funeral and house-clearing business, etc.. Also I have to admit my native English countryside was too alluring to resist and while there I simply couldn't say no to many a wondrous wander amidst wild daffodils in Devon, oak forests, bluebells, birches, wild garlic, hazel catkins leaning over riverbanks, mossy old stone walls by Welsh lakes, moorland, snow on plum branches in old churchyards in Norwich, the big old wild cherry in the Cathedral Close, summer hedgerows bursting with hundreds of species of wild flowers, and...well, you get the picture. :-) Anyway, I have all the beautiful memories to sustain me. Thanks so much for the hugs and good wishes. I seem to be back to lurking even if not really up to posting full-time. But I couldn't NOT do anything about this SCC Rose Garden catastrophe-in-the-making; I still grieve the loss of a rose garden near me that was of the 'living library' variety, which taught me most of what I know, and more importantly feel, about old roses, lost to drought a few years back; I couldn't bear to see that happen again, anywhere. Hugs and kindest wishes back, Comtesse :-)