Thanks for telling the story, Jackie. It's an exciting one. I hope you brought one home.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

GREAT Seminar. Bloomfield Abundance talk was EXCITING!!! Look for video, early next week. I'M BEAT! Tomorrow morning in the cemetery is the finish. Historic GW PARTICIPANTS photo was taken -- WISH you were all here!

Jeri

Me, too.

Sherry

Jeri, did I understand you to say that there will be a VIDEO of the talks at the symposium available by next week? Yay! How exactly can folks order one? Also, how can I get more copies of the DVD of the Sac Historic rose garden? We watched it as soon as I got home last night, and it is marvelous. As an added thrill for me, my DH and I appear in the video (I think as an illustration of folks just walking along, enjoying the roses - me in long green dress with white parasol - last summer when it was so hot)!

Re Bloomfield Abundance again - when I got home I looked in several books by Trevor Griffiths about old roses, in the hopes that it might have survived in New Zealand, and that someone from there might not have caught the UK virus of being "certain" that it was really Spray Cecile Brunner. Well, sure enough - in his book "The Book of Old Roses" c. 1983, he says this about BA: " My plants [of BA and CB] are growing within a short distance of each other and there is little doubt that they are totally different." Ha!

Thanks again for everything you do -

Jackie

The plant of the "Probably Bloomfield Abundance" that was the finale of the evening in the live auction is sitting here in front of me on the desk in my hotel room. Stephen Scanniello, our capable and insistant auctioneer, certainly made me (and my checkbook) work for it. Can't wait to see what it does in my garden!

I photographed most of the slides and took notes during the presentations (which were mind-blowingly amazing!), but I just realized that I didn't start doing that until the program about Father Schoener ... so I don't have what Fred said about this rose. Now I will have to get with him and have him tell me the story. (On a side note, the stem with the open flower that was on display was given to our own Malcolm Manners for DNA study.)

I'll have more to say about this later, but let me finish by saying that I have attended a LOT of rose conferences and this is BY FAR the best one EVER! I'm so glad to be here!

I am so looking forward to all of the details and photos as everyone makes their way home and ponders the event!

Huge congratulations, Connie!!! Do I see BA propagation in your future - and ours??

So excited that you won the bid. You won one for the east coast!

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

And huge congratulations to Anita and the Sacramento Cemetery rose family for this successful rose conference. So sorry I couldn't be there to revel in it all. What a coup for those who could.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Connie - so happy to hear that Malcolm Manners will be getting DNA - that possibly BA - that is great! Also great that you got a plant - please post pictures next Spring when it hopefully will be blooming.

Jackie

Congratulations to Anita and all at Sacramento.

... It was an undoubted Hybrid Tea, with normal large flowers. Since that date (its introduction) an imposter - though a very beautiful one - has intervened, with a close resemblance to 'Mlle Cecile Brunner' in its miniature flowers...)

Graham Stuart Thomas

As Mr Thomas wrote that in 1962, and goes on to describe exactly the plant we all know these days as 'Spray Cecile Brunner, ending It is obvious that our plant is wrongly named - witness photographs of the original in the American Rose Annual for 1920 and 1928, and another in McFarland, Page 24 and which still grows at Mottisfont Abbey, and as Mr Thomas states that he has not at that date seen 'Spray Cecile Brunner' for comparison I fail to see the need for the insulting 'UK virus' term.

Many people in many countries have devoted years of their lives to unravel the problems we all have with mis-named, mis-identified, or simply not-yet-identified roses, and most of us from all continents share and communicate our knowledge freely and openly. Therefore it saddens me deeply to see these sort of nationalistic insults being thrown about.

Best wishes
Jon

It's unfortunate when statements like Mr. Griffith's about "my plants are totally different", aren't accompanied with HOW they differ. When comparing bush Cecile Brunner to Spray, there is no doubt they are OF the same rose, but they are also TOTALLY different. They share the same components, but Spray's are significantly larger in my climate. The whole plant is vastly more vigorous, faster growing and achieves much larger proportions, much faster. It is, to my eye, an intermediate mutation on the way to a full climbing form. It's easily twice the size of the bush, about half that of the full climber, which makes complete sense to me. I don't view mutations as an "on" or "off" proposition, but more of a continuum.

As I discussed in my "Poor Old Iceberg" article on HMF (see below), it is common to find bushes of both of these varieties which grow to vastly differing proportions. We commonly see Iceberg here which are happy to remain at the four by four foot range, while others are twice that size, yet are not considered "climbing". It's the same with Cecile. Some are easily maintained as smaller polys with very little pruning, while others easily build to six and eight foot shrubs, yet don't throw the amazing sprays the Spray form does.

There is no doubt the breeding of Bloomfield Abundance could never produce the foliage, wood and plant type resulting from Cecile Brunner's lineage. Anything which demonstrates her characteristics are obviously of her breeding and could NEVER be Bloomfield Abundance.

I'm thrilled Fred appears to have solved this puzzle, unraveling the mystery. If anyone could, it is Fred! Thanks, sir! Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Poor Old Iceberg

VIDEO: No. Not a video of the whole proceedings - but I have some of Darrell's talk onCA rose history, and highlights of Fred's talk on Bloomfield Abundance. Everytime I talk with Fred, I learn a bunch ...

He and I dropped off the tour today toward the end, and went off to look at the Abbott n Burns rose and mull over that, and over "Frank Dorroh" from another cemetery .. then, he talked us into "Fairmount Proserpine" -- and on the way out, we grabbed Mrs Keays "Faded Pink Monthly" -- mostly because I love Mrs Keays ...

Now we're rolling along the freeway, on the first leg home, so it's a memory. But whoever said it was the best conference EV-ER -- Connie, I think, was right. It WAS.

When I get home, I'll see what I've got, and try to make something I can puton You Tube. :-)

Jeri - looking forward to whatever amount of video you can put up- that will be so wonderful.

Jon - Oh Dear, no insults intended, I assure you. Very sorry - just frustrated. GST is one of my most favorite rose authors, and he did indeed recognize that the rose in commerce in the UK as BA was "an imposter". Not everyone did, and now that we have the DNA evidence, it is disappointing, for example, that both Beales and Austin are STILL selling what we now know is Spray Cecile Brunner and calling it Bloomfield Abundance, and attributing it to Thomas, 1920. I'm sure many nurseries in the US and other places are too -

Jeri - can you talk Fred into writing up all of this (and anything else he is working on figuring out) into an article, or something? Would make fascinating reading.

Jackie

I suspect Fred's work on this is going to be written up. I of course came away with a need to grow it, for sure. I like what I know of Thomas's roses, and I like what I know of its pedigree.

Weren't we just lucky -- to be there?

:-)

Jeri

Connie, congratulations on Bloomfield Abundance. Hopefully your capable hands will lead it back into commerce and it can come back to the west coast.

Glad we got to meet.

Diane

When I read about sports with varying degrees of difference from the original, I don't think that actual genetic mutations are responsible. I think the variation in phenotype is due more to epigenetic changes -- rather than there being changes in the genes themselves, there are changes in degrees of expression. Because named varieties of roses are reproduced by cloning, these epigenetic changes are easily passed on to "offspring" derived from cuttings or buds.

:-)

~Christopher

Fred talked about Bloomfield Abundance at the end of the day so perhaps Connie will have the info.

I know that Fred wants to study this rose for a while before he draws any more firm conclusions. But yes, what he knows now needs to be put into writing.

Nobody has mentioned one of the nice little things that happened - Capt Thomas' great-granddaughter was there, brought some of his photo albums, medals and books, and was given one of the plants to grow. That made me very happy. We believe that the photos were taken by McFarland, and at least one of the hand-tinted photos is in Roses of the World in Color. I do believe that they tried to tint them accurately.

We didn't video the event - we just didn't have anybody to do that, unfortunately. The event photographer was only there for a little bit so I'd really appreciate anybody sharing photos with me that you took, including shots of Sunday, which I wasn't able to attend because of HRF board commitments. My email is anitac @ surewest.net (no spaces) if you want to send photos to me, or if you want to send me a CD of them, email me for my address. My camera stayed in its case all weekend and I didn't take a single one, because I was just too busy. I think that was the case for most of our volunteers who usually take photos. We were running hard!

I'm glad everybody had such a good time. It was a thrill to be part of making it happen, and well worth the effort. I hope nobody caught my cold or whatever it was that made me so hoarse and congested! I plan to spend the day in my pjs, sort through some of the mess in my house, and snooze....
Anita

Go get some more rest, Anita. You deserve it. I know it was a group effort, but the buck stopped with you. And y'all did SO well -- you really set a hard standard for future events. Of course, having THAT garden as a backdrop couldn't be matched.

I've got pix - to be sorted out at home . . . Where we'll be in an hour or so.

Jeri