Hollywood Cemetery's Roses This Week

10 years ago

As part of my cooperation with Hollywood Cemetery, I go down there whenever I can to photograph the roses and assess their condition. I spent the day down there on Wednesday, and I found mostly positive things to report. The spring flush is over, and the roses that rebloom are refueling to go at it again. A rainy spring, with frequent thunderstorms, have flattened some heavy branches on large roses, but the plants themselves are fine. Some of the China roses are leafless ... weird. Roses that blackspot are doing so. Over all, I felt very positive.

More details in my blog post this morning, along with LOTS more photos. (The photo I'm attaching to this post is 'Archduke Charles'.)

Here is a link that might be useful: Roses in Hollywood Cemetery ... June 19, 2013

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Comments (9)

Lauren Hayes
10 years ago
Beautiful photos. I'm down here in TN and both of my Ducher plants dropped ALL of their leaves after the first spring flush. I had a lovely rose friend suggest that too much rain and wetness caused it, they are starting to grow their leaves back, but they were the only ones to do this. I have Mystic Beauty and Clotilde right beside them and they were fine, so if you find out why those chinas did that, I am in the same boat.
hartwood
Original Author
10 years ago
rainbowroses, it's comforting to hear that your Ducher plants did the same thing! I'm used to Chinas getting a little bit of blackspot in summer, but this late spring complete leaf drop was a shock. I am fairly certain that the roses will be fine, and should grow leaves back as soon as conditions are favorable. They're just going to be a bit odd looking in the meantime.
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Connie, you know I am too far away, but I wish you a splendid work day. To those who have never gone on a rose work day, you cannot imagine more fun for free. I go to the ones at Vintage, but I hear the same thing from people who go to the ones at the Sacramento Cemetery Garden, and also from various work days Stephen Scanniello has held. Connie posted wonderful pictures from her previous one. You can find such work days at public or semi-public rose collections in various parts of the country. When someone is holding one within traveling distance of you, you owe it to yourself pack a lunch (or a pot luck dish, if that is how it is done) and get yourself to the event. You will be so glad you did. Folly
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I wonder whether there's a guide to some of the roses, but not others? The labels for the roses that are marked have numbers on them, as if they correspond to some sort of list. There was this sort of tag on Louis Philippe and Safrano (photos of these are in the Rose Gallery). These were the only two roses I saw on Sunday that had labels. I know one day when I was there last fall, I ran across a labeled bush of Spray Cecile Brunner. Most of the roses there, however, are unmarked. I only have the HMF photos to go by, and the ones I see there of Polka are close, but I don't get an "aha!" feeling about them. The photos of the Polka blooms are a bit too apricot/orangy (the cemetery rose is gold, fading to yellow), Polka's stems appear to be much longer, and its prickles are a bit too far apart -- the cemetery rose is very thorny all over. When I cut my sprig apart into two cuttings this morning, and I picked lots of little thorns off the nodes before I stuck them in the soil. (We'll see how well it roots -- fingers crossed) Since Polka is a climber, would it grow as straight and upright as the cemetery rose if it didn't have any support? The HMF bush photos show it with more of an arching habit. The cemetery bush lives a fairly neglected existance, without the care and supplemental water of most garden roses. Would that take some of the 'climb' out of a climber? Could it be something like Soleil d'Or? Connie
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I love to visit quiet places like that. Thank you for showing us the spring roses. The large plants in bloom and the beautiful monuments are grand and elegant and at the same time simple and peaceful. I'm glad they have let the plants remain large and not pruned them back. Have you ever started plants from cuttings from that garden?
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Thank you, Ann. I was hoping you would see my message. Since I've never seen RRD on a plant before, I can't be sure of my diagnosis, but what I saw looked like pictures of RRD I've seen in your book and elsewhere. My mother was with me, but she was sitting in the car, while I got out to look at this rose, which I am always hoping to identify--looks as if it should be a Tea, but with very large flowers of a pale yellow sometimes with pink edges and stuffed with petals, giving something of a muddled form that I particularly like. As we approached in the car, I noticed what I thought was a small plant with small leaves growing right next to the rose, but when I stepped out of the car, I was on the opposite side where blooms and growth were normal and luxurious. In fact, I've never seen this rose with more and prettier blooms. Then I walked around to the other side and realised that the small plant was the rose itself, with small, disorted leaves and bits of blooms, in peculair reddish hues. As soon as I was back in the car, I told my mother I thought the rose was infected. Although she 's never seen pictures of RRD and knows nothing about it, she said that she thought somethign was wrong with it, too--at first she assumed the strange growth was another plant, then when she realised it was part of the rose, she decided that the rose must have some "terrible disease" to produce such a "distorted" look. I hadn't thought of Roundup as a possibility--I never use chemicals of any kind and am not familiar with their effects--but I hope that's the problem and not RRD. I have sent Dr. Antoin Baudoin's name to the manager at Hollywood. It would be terrible if the rose were sacrificed unnecessarily, and equaly terrible if it had RRD and nothing was done to protect the other roses at Hollywood. Lindsey
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ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
10 years ago
Connie, I so enjoyed your blog about the cemetery and then, being a hardened animal lover, I had to read all about Daniel's travails (which quite surely were yours too) and was thrilled to read and see that he is so much better. You've gone to the nth degree to help him and he's a very lucky doggie.

Ingrid
hartwood
Original Author
10 years ago
Ingrid, you have now seen that my blog is about a whole lot more than just roses. Anything in life around here is fair game for a blog post.

I am an animal lover through and through, like you. I'm sorry to say, though, that we had to let Daniel go last month. He had a great year in remission, but his lymphoma came back fast and aggressive, as lymphoma can do. He was happy and comfortable till the end, thank goodness. I have a huge hole in my heart right now. Fortunately, we have sweet Ruby (Lab/BC mix) to help all of us heal.

During the spring and into summer, I blog a lot about roses ... my roses, friends' roses, public roses (like the ones at Hollywood), EVERYTHING roses!! Soon I hope to show my new rose bed. Right now, it's just a bunch of pots laid out on landscape fabric ... not very exciting. All of us rose gardeners understand, though, that those pots hold a whole lot of promise of the (hopefully) wonderful garden to come.

Connie
jerijen
10 years ago
There was a lot there to enjoy -- THANK YOU!

I've never seen Archduke Charles so PALE. I love it -- but it surprised me.

The Larus rose is pretty wonderful.

The big Alba Odorata really made me smile. It's a survivor in old cemeteries out here, too, and manages to be huge, with no help at all. I once got too close to one, while wearing a full skirt, and it took two people to disentangle me. It must be the ultimate anti-burglar rose!

Jeri
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
10 years ago
Connie, I'm so very sorry about Daniel. I'm glad he was given another good year with you and did not suffer. That hole in the heart can never be completely filled by any other animal, although they help greatly to comfort us. Each one is so special and unique, and the memories never fade.

Ingrid
portlandmysteryrose
10 years ago
Connie

One of my great loves--cemetery roses. Sometimes people look at us like we're lunatics, but my husband and I frequent old gravesites, searching for roses and reading the stone inscriptions. Your sharing enables me to visit places across the continent. I may have some ancestors buried over there in your neck of the woods. I hope roses adorn their resting places. Thank you for being a guardian angel of old roses in old places!

Carol

This post was edited by PortlandMysteryRose on Sat, Jun 22, 13 at 13:57
altorama Ray
10 years ago
I wish we had cemetery roses around here. They have been gone for years...every month everything gets mowed down. We also are not allowed to plant them.
hartwood
Original Author
10 years ago
Jeri, I think of you and that skirt story whenever I see that Alba Odorata ... and I give it a wide berth unless I'm properly dressed.

Carol, I often wonder about the families that are represented in the cemeteries that I visit.

Alida, what you describe is the norm around here, too. Monotonous stretches of fescue and Bermuda, grave markers flat on the ground, and artificial flowers as far as the eye can see. Hollywood Cemetery is a special place, designed in 1847 during the rural cemetery movement, when final resting places in urban areas became parks for families to gather. It is still like that today. I bet there are cemetery roses in your area, you just haven't found them yet.

Hollywood Cemetery's Roses This Week

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Lauren Hayes

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ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9

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Hollywood Cemetery's Roses This Week

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Lauren Hayes

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ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9

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