We have grown Walferdange for several years. It is of only moderate size in Southern California, and the bloom color is unusual, and lovely.

It grows in a somewhat shaded area here, and is not bothered by that.
On the downside, there is no fragrance that I can detect -- but perhaps someone else can.

It is disease-resistant here, but we are not troubled by blackspot.

Jeri

Had I but an opportunity to speak of what I love! I do preach--I mean, talk--about the Teas and Chinas on the Italian rose forum, because they're little known in this country that's so wonderfully suited to them. I've heard vaguely of granges, but don't know exactly how they work.

Melissa

Hello Melissa,
The Grange began in the nineteenth century as an organization to give farmers and other rural folk a voice. Much of the structure shows the founders' Masonic identity, but the actual local Granges that survive today are social service/community groups. I am the granddaughter and niece of farmers, but never belonged until this past year, when I realized that working in agriculture was no longer a defining feature of membership. Since I believe in supporting local food producers, I joined.

Our local Grange supports a Local Leadership Seminar that so far has produced a few folks who have run for (and won) local office. Most recently, it researched, developed and printed a "Home Grown" brochure listing contact info for all the local food and other agricultural businesses - everything from Burdick chocolate to grass fed beef to raw milk to firewood to maple syrup to Christmas trees to cheese to Alpaca wool...etc etc...no rose nurseries, but we do have a winery!
The local Grange also gives a scholarship to high school senior going into ag.
I'll get off the soapbox now!

No, that sounds good. I grew up in a small town in the country/woods, and I live, not by chance, in a small town in the country now. I'm all for institutions that both support local identity and give community members a voice and a platform for action. Here in Italy the hills and mountains have been losing population since WWII, since work is scarce there and the living is poor. Recently the government launched a plan for the school system that would among other things close very small schools (under fifty students). Well, a lot of those very small schools are in the hills and mountains with their dwindling populations, and the schools in fact are one of the institutions that help form a sense of community. I know this because my daughter has attended such a school since she was three years old (she's now ten, in fifth grade, her last year before she goes to the middle school in town), and it has been been the canal through which I have formed almost all my acquaintances and made my friends; there is no other. When the school put on a play a few years ago, the entire elementary school acted in it, about twenty-six children all together, and the entire local population, not just parents and sibling, showed up to watch. We need our local institutions.

Off the topic and on the soapbox, and I hope no one will mind.

Melissa

I know I'll be curious to find out how your 'Quietness' does, since it's a beauty but has a typically warm-climate fan base (the same people who know and appreciate the virtues of 'Souvenir de la Malmaison'). If you have good luck with your new Buck roses, you might want to try 'Prairie Harvest', since it seems to be very healthy in the North even by Buck standards.

Oddly enough, I had no idea the Grange still survived in any form; it was founded by a farmer from the town I grew up in back in Minnesota, and of course we got to take numerous grade school field trips to the Oliver H. Kelley Farm (although I heard it was in financial trouble for a while and don't know whether or how that situation was resolved). It sounds like it has kept on being relevant, which is heartening.

Our local Grange is growing, as it has focused not just on great potluck suppers - and there is nothing wrong with those! - but also on active participation in community leadership as well as what appears to be a growing wave of interest and energy over the local food movement. There have always been farmers in Walpole - we still have more active dairy farms than any other town in NH, but they struggle with economies of scale which favor the big milk producers in other states. "Value added" to the raw material is the direction some are taking - Fanny Mason cheeses are now produced at Boggy Meadow Farm, raw milk, ground beef, eggs, maple syrup, honey are sold at the farm store at Great Brook Farm, Walpole Creamery Ice Cream is made right here in town, from scratch, no flavor mixes, from the milk from another local farm, etc etc...
We who buy locally grown/produced food are supporting our communities and getting a product that has not crossed the country on a fossil fuel. And while it is sometimes a little more money, it is often no more expensive than the supermarket equivalent, with less packaging. The eggs at Boggy Meadow are cheaper than supermarket organic free range because they haven't been sorted to be uniformly 2 oz large - most are at least that size, rarely is there a smaller. Our grandmothers who gathered their own eggs had to do their own sorting, and knew that a large egg is about 1/4 cup, important only for baking.
Check out your local sources!

I actually benefited from a small scholarship from the local grange when I went to college myself. My family were not farmers, and I was not planning to go into agriculture, but I was the only student from my high school going to the main campus of the land-grant university in our state that year. I guess that was the closest anyone was coming to agriculture.

The community I lived in then was turning from agriculture to being a bedroom community near Pittsburgh, a transition that is now nearly complete. I don't think that there are more than half a dozen small farms left. A pity, really.

Rosefolly