Thank you all very much! Jerome- Larmarque has always been very top favorite rose. Like Audrey said it has such nice clean blooms and the smell is a wonderful sweet citrus scent. I also just love the green apple color of the leaves.Very well behaved climber. Krista- Duchess de Brabant has grown very quickly for me. Always covered in blooms. Denise- Thank you for the complement...I too just love that birdfeeder, got it at our Flowertown Festival 2 years ago but I wish I spent more and got the larger birdhouse instead as now that vendor hasn't been there since...got to remember to go with your gut and just buy it when you see it. Audrey- I have Ducher too but I got lucky as she was sent by accident so they told me to keep her and I love her. Very clean, nice rounded shape, and a citrus scent similar to Lamarque. I love white roses but they are hard to get full bush shots as the white seems no matter the time of day is bright and it just doesn't show up very well. Here is mine... Here is a link that might be useful: hennypennyrose cottage

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

Here is what Bob, thistlesifter, had to say about Doran Black's origins on another forum linked below: Over the years I've learned that Dick will answer many direct questions with direct answers. But there is a mutual respect we have developed in the protocol of our plant relationship that avoids certain details that would seem to violate mutual trusts. There are several of these and one is I never ask a direct question relating to unknown constituent species in a cultivar. Having said that, sometimes there are things that are assumed and to those assumptions we discuss details. Dick has indicated in our conversations about his 'little Aloes' that much of the breeding that led up to 'Doran Black' was done by another hybridizer that I don't know much about John Bleck. I have another of Dick's Aloe plants that he has tagged - John Bleck. Dick doesn't approach assigning a name lightly. All of his named cultivars that are named in honor of associates are done with much consideration. The plant that had been developed in part from John Bleck had been involved with work done by Doran Black, Dick added the finishing touches to it and got the resulting 'Doran Black' hybrid that we are familiar with today. All that discussion and I don't have a clue as to what all the constituents are. Its not too important to me. For many years Dave Grigsby worked to perfect A. descoingsii hybrid. Dave believed, and I believe Dick shared the belief that there were powerful potentials that could be unlocked from development of A. descoingsii lines. One of the early 'named' Aloe culitvars from Dick was 'David Grigsby'. Dave was an honorable and loyal friend to many of us who knew him well. Dave and Dick had collaborated several times to develop interesting culitivars some of which are commonly seen around the world today. So I am reasonably satisfied that there is A. descoingsii DNA in Doran Black'. Doran Black is an amazing cultivar! Dicks collection of 5000 Aloe taxon cultivars contain Doran Black with varying degrees descoingsii cultivar mixes. His Aloe project began right after his entire succulent nursery was burned to the ground in 1984. So he has been breeding these 'Little Aloes' for 24+ years. I have notions of what some of the 5 other constituent species are in the the Doran Black mix. Dick does a lot of highly disciplined selection. His philosophy for retaining a plant and not destroying it is: 'I get rid of any hybrid seedling that I wouldn't buy myself'. Given that his is a rare eye for succulents beautiful and unusual, he expresses a unique art form in his selections. For awhile some who were aware of this 'castoff' practice would scout the green trash he dumped in a ravine adjoining his remote country home property and scavenge his castoffs. When he learned of this he began destroying the castoffs. So there has been very little of his Aloe work that has gotten away from him that he didn't intend to go. He has told me many times that he won't sell an Aloe till his cultivar count has reached 10,000. He then intends to sell the entire lot to a large lab that will name, prop and produce millions of plants for worlwide distrubution. I think this may be Dick's legacy. He is known now for his lifelong work with Echeveria cultivars (which continues). One day his Aloe culitvars will have books dedicated to them. He learned from his work with Echeveria how much a named cultivar can be bastardized when its un-named and lesser quality siblings are presented to the world without names. Naming confusion rules at a low level. But the ones he intended to have names that stick - have names that stick! Here is a link that might be useful: Small Aloe Cultivars thread at TGF

Very beautiful garden, thanks for the great pictures of the roses in it.Wonderful!!!