Here's the meeting agenda, so you can all get your 2 cents worth in. Even if you can't be at the planning meeting, we'd love to hear your ideas: 1. the date. Has to be between the middle of Sept. and middle of Oct. Any earlier and it's too hot, any later and it might rain. But I don't want to conflict with other rose events (which is the whole reason to hold it in the fall). And I want it to be on a date that it can always be, like 'the second Saturday in October' or 'the last Saturday in September'. If you know of standing ARS events the might compete, let me know. 2. Plants to sell. We'll need volunteers to propagate them. We'll need to decide which of our rare varieties are most important to grow for sale. Recommendations welcome. 3. Workshops. I'd like to have some hands-on workshops, charging a small fee to participants to cover the workshop leader's costs.What would you like to have a workshop to learn to do? Who would you like to take a workshop from? Also talks and demonstrations- any topic ideas? Someone has already mentioned "Roses in the Landscape Garden". 4. Vendors. Do we want to have vendors, and if so, what kind? Just rose vendors or all gardening type vendors? 5. Any other ideas we should consider?

All of these photos are now available on the websites of the Gold Coast Heritage Roses Group: http://www.goldcoastrose.org/ and the National Heritage Roses Group: http://www.theheritagerosesgroup.org/ Here is a link that might be useful: The Heritage Roses Group

Thank you, Jill! Kim

Hi - We sell some old roses at the Sacramento Historic Rose Garden (Old City Cemetery) open garden every April - this year will be Apr 18th. Our usual college greenhouse hasn't been available so everybody's propagating at home (even Jeri is doing some for us) and our selection will be a bit random - lots of some varieties and not any of others. Hoffman von Fallersleben is one of our favorites and we usually have had it, since it's not widely in commerce, but this year I don't think anybody took cuttings of it. It would be great if you could come up for our open house, Masha, so long as you got home in time to get the guys into bed. We start at 9:30. You could bring the boys along - but they might get smeared with chocolate up here, because we usually have cookies and a very soft spot for little ones.(Daun's daughter had a cookie or two this year, I'm pretty sure.) Jeri's right about taking cuttings - it's just plain rude to do it in somebody else's garden without asking, whether or not it's public. We have roses that are diseased, or that we don't want cut for a variety of reasons. Very few of our roses are under patent, so that's not an issue, but it certainly would be at the Heritage or other public gardens. We also want people to use sterile pruners. And, we want to encourage people to buy from commercial vendors if roses are readily available. Our policy usually is that people who come help can take cuttings, but otherwise, it's on a case-by-case basis. Anita