Yay, thanks for the test!

This photo showed up unexpectedly at 640 px wide,.

Carol, the university sold off land for housing. Much needed in this expanding city but there are other areas to build on. The Genetic garden was a resource for gardening. My husband and I were lucky to experience it in its heyday and to learn basic gardening skills as beginners 24 years ago. The trial beds were educational and we learnt about the need for feeding plants and how. We learnt about composting, too. The local rose society had its own trial field, tended by volunteers. I rescued other roses when it was abandoned, Katharina Zeimet, Rosa californica Plena, Alba Meidiland, now treasures in my garden. We had little time to dig up the roses or I would have dug up more varieties. An old photo of R. californica Plena, it's bigger now. P.S. My husband is looking over my shoulder: "How small it was then".

Thanks everyone! Dainty Bess was pretty enough, and smelled nice, but I have to admit that the shrub is kind of thin and lanky looking. SdlM, sigh. Would bloom, blackspot, defoliate. Grow some new leaves. Bloom, blackspot, defoliate. Rinse and repeat. I don't think it ever got over two feet. I visited it a year or so later during a trip back, and it was dead. I think the neighbor's dog was using it as a fire hydrant, though, so that may have contributed to it's problems.