HEY! KIM! "CRESTLINE MULBERRY" looks really GREAT there!
(It's too bad it's not in the Sacramento City Cemetery. It should be.)

Jeri

Jeri, maybe someone at the cemetery could petition huntington for a cutting to root to put there? :)

I figured you guys would like to see that one since Ya'll got excited about it last time I was able to catch a photo of it.

Thanks for the tour, aimee. Loved it!

Kate

Thank you for posting!

I hate driving to LA, but I want to visiting Huntington

Hi Jeri, we don't have to go to The Huntington. Sharon has it in Torrance and we're riding up to the get together in Visalia Saturday. I'm sure I can ask her to bring some if you want some. She may even have suckers of it as it will sucker when happy. She's had it in her garden since the mid eighties, just after I found it in Crestline. Kim

No. It's an HP, and they're anathema here.
We're down to (I think) two of them.

I'd have liked it to be in the Cemetery (where HPs really do well).

Jeri

They are here, too. I've emailed her to ask about suckers for Saturday. Perhaps Judy might want to take it home for planting there? We'll see. Thanks. Kim

You guys are killing me!

I need an Antique Roses forum intervention! So many pretty roses to learn about!

My La Reine and Baronne are doing ok in my yard, Jeri, is it just the coastline thing that makes HP problem children for you? I can't remember what you said...

They like more aridity, Aimee. Damp turns them into moldy messes. Black spot, rust and mildew galore, balled blooms and a lot of die back. Humidity with any kind of heat is their enemy. They can take a lot more cold-damp, arid-cold or arid-heat, but not humid-heat. Kim

I guess there are some pluses to living vaguely in the desert!

Yup, that there are!

Yes. Kim's got it right. This coastal strip is a great area for most Teas and Chinas, but most HPs are disastrous here.

I've tried for enough years to know for sure that most of them just aren't my best roses, and I will not spray as the price of keeping them.

Jeri

Thank you, Aimee, for a very well-done blog. I enjoy ALL in your blogs. The details you wrote about your roses help me a lot, to know which Austin I should get as grafted. The tour of Huntington is fantastic - I love your pics. of Wisteria and the many blooming trees. Thank you for sharing your visit of the garden with us.

Aimee -- "Stanford Tea" might possibly be "Standiford Plot Tea," but in any case, I suspect it's Mme. Lombard. (You find that all over the place). That rose mis-labelled as 'Safrano' could-might be 'Mons. Tillier'.

Now that he is overseeing the Huntington's Rose Gardens, Tom Carruth plans a comprehensive cataloging of the roses -- but before they can do that, he's quickly learned that the mis-labelling problems among the old Teas must be addressed. I'm really glad to see him taking this step.

And thanks for the blog. Lovely images! You have a gift for finding the right details. Good work!

Jeri

Thanks for posting that, Aimee. I enjoyed looking.

Jeri, that's really good news about the old teas, some are not labeled at all, some have half broken labels... and many I think must be mislabeled...! I'm sure they have some unusual stuff there.

Thanks for the compliments, folks! Really glad you enjoyed the photos! :) :)

There used to be. I think you'll find most of what remains there is in commerce. Kim

Kim, did they just die?

I understand a number have, which isn't surprising given the position they are planted in and the abundant over growth which has surrounded them for years, trapping moisture, shading them from light and competing underground with their massive root systems. Teas and Chinas can be quite prone to mildew in the wrong conditions, which that space became over time. Very little, if any, "collecting" occurred in the recent past and everything which grew there when we had our very active volunteer core was replicated and spread everywhere they were accepted. My "function" as a volunteer was propagation. I admit I was obsessive about making sure anything which didn't appear to be readily available in the Combined Rose List was propagated and given to any and every nursery and garden who would take it. I've lost rare things before being able to share them. The Huntington had lost rare things before being able to share them. Ralph Moore freely shared rare and interesting things after he learned the hard way, he lost the only plants of something important simply because he treated them as proprietary and didn't spread them around. After suffering that, he made sure anything he valued grew in as many places as they would be accepted. Several of us had the pleasure of restocking him with things he created, used then lost. Had I not shared the seedlings with Mel Hulse for The Heritage, Rayon Butterflies, Annie Laurie McDowell, Super Jane and a few others would be extinct. He was the good steward who preserved them until needed.

Every rose in the Tea and China collection; every found and Bermuda Mystery Rose; every polyantha; every rose in the Study Plot; every older HT and floribunda; every odd species which grew at The Huntington was reproduced and sold at the Symposium and Friends sales; shared with Pixie Treasures (now gone), Ashdown (now gone), Sequoia (now gone), Vintage, and several others. Very many I grew in my old Newhall garden and shared freely with anyone seeking cuttings of them. I never want to hold the last unicorn horn as I am sure to lose it. That's too heavy an obligation to endure. I've spread every rose I ever imported as far and wide as they would be accepted to insure they remained here in case mine were lost. It worked with many and failed with several. I imported Louis Lens' Pink Mystery and spread it everywhere I could. It is extinct in this country. The same with R. Arkansana "Woodrow".

Anything old, rare, unusual, desirable which grew anywhere on those grounds through the early nineties has been propagated and spread far and wide. Whether it has remained spread around or not, I can't guaranty, but every effort was deliberately made to get them "out there" to preserve them. After that time, there was a deliberate shift at the Library to replace volunteers with docents and the main efforts to collect and propagate ceased. Some purchases were made, but the whole focus changed from preservation and distribution through propagating our own plants for the sales to obtaining commercially available, five gallon, bud and bloom plants. The market changed from "collectors" of the unusual and rare to the "coffee table book crowd" who were willing and able to pay $35 for a pretty rose in a five gallon can, where "collectors" were thrilled with small plants in gallon cans for $6 to $6.50. That change was well under way when I stopped volunteering and working the plant sales.

Initially, the commercial stock was donated. That changed as the industry suffered greater losses until I understand the stock was purchased for resale. Potting up commercial bare roots for sale is much less labor and time intensive than collecting cuttings from the gardens and other venues, striking them and nursing them along into retail worthy plants. It takes one-sixth the quantity to produce the same gross dollars at $35 each than $6. It takes significantly less labor to move a couple of hundred five gallon rose than it does a thousand gallons.

With that said, no, I don't expect any earth shattering, exciting discoveries to be made from the rose audit there. It's very much the same with what happened with the Mildred Mathias Rare Plant Collection at UCLA. While Ms. Mathias lived and collected plants, they were the only source for their wonderful collection. Once she wasn't collecting and the university didn't support new collecting, often not even supporting propagating what they already had, what they originally had exclusives on became common from multiple growers. Just six years ago, the last I had access to that collection, I could buy two inch pots of "rare" salvias from them for $13 COST each, or four inch pots of the SAME salvia from nearly a dozen other sources for $3 cost, each. To remain a 'rare plant source', you have to continue adding rare plants. Once you stop, what was rare quickly becomes common. Kim

Thanks for the beautiful photos, Aimeekitty. I hope that somehow Crestline Mulberry does make its way to the Sac City Cemetery. It's gorgeous.

Annabeth

It will Annabeth. It's safely spread around all over South Coast Rose Society and in a very dear, old friend's garden who is making pieces of it available as soon as they are ready. It's relatively easy to get it from here to there. It will get there. Kim

Kim, that's very interesting, thanks for explaining!

I've been to the plant sale a couple times... always hoping to find something rare that I could get from Huntington, as opposed to some other nursery, I don't remember ever seeing anything particularly unusual. :\

You aren't likely to, either. There isn't anyone "collecting" and I seriously doubt there is much propagation going on other than for the grounds. It's easier for them to have local growers bring things in for sale. Kim