This arrived this morning...

The Gallica bed of roses at Descanso is now completely gone. The remaining
Albas & Centifolias will probably be gone within the next few weeks. I
don't know what can be done to save them, massive writing campaigns? Requests
for the plants? If anyone has any idea how we can save the remaining OGRs,
please help. Call or write Descanso. Let them know they're being watched &
a very large rose community is very upset at what's been done to the
International Rosarium.

Someone needs to call the local TV stations, that's the only trick can stop them from digging asap.......

a public garden is supposed to be of highish maintenance

California has been in a drought since 2010.

http://westphoria.sunset.com/2015/08/18/what-california-is-getting-right-about-the-drought-hint-a-lot/

Yes indeed. We ARE in a drought.

But I can tell you from personal experience that long-established Tea Roses and China Roses are very, very drought-tolerant.

They removed the roses that were the best possible example of gardening in drought conditions.

It makes me sick. I'm going to start with their Facebook page, and work my way on through the rest of their points of contact. It is too late to save the garden, but they at least need to know that WE know what they have done, and how flaming STUPID they have been.

California has been in a drought since 2010.

Thanks, I've been in this forum long enough to have noticed... And your point is? I didn't read that the garden was replacing roses with natives and cacti.. Btw, maintenance does not only mean watering, it means pruning, fertilizing and a long list of labour intensive work and expenses that the average person may not be prepared to do in their backyards but unless a public garden is prepared to do these it can not be classed as a public garden. The lowest maintenance is to let the land revert to its natural state, which stops it from being a garden by definition...

But whichever way you define maintenance, as Jeri points out, warm climate roses require less maintenance than Austins and HT's. European once blooming OGRs require less maintenance also. I thought that is well known to people in these forums?

Very few of the once-flowering, European OGRs are suited to many of our climates here, unfortunately. There are exceptions, but they ARE exceptions. Even those few, seldom look anywhere near as good as they do where they are really "happy". Besides, when you live in the land of "endless summer", the demand is for continuous color. Traditionally, even deciduous trees were avoided here because they looked 'dead' part of the year.

Yes, I agree. But still, they are lower maintenance than Austins wherever they might be planted. They need less water, less or no pruning and less food.

If Descanso cared at all about maintaining a garden while dealing with drought, they would have KEPT the Teas and Chinas, and many of the species roses, while tailoring the companion plantings to save water. In their location, they could certainly have kept many of the once-blooming European roses, too.

It's clear that they did NOT care about drought. And clear that they did not care about history, or good gardening, or preservation, or education, or their own Mission Statement.

In fact, I have yet to have heard a hint as to what they DO care about. Other than, perhaps, an ill-considered attempt by an incoming manager to remake the garden in accordance with their own flawed vision.

If I sound angry about that, it's because I AM very, very angry.

As I said, ignorance meeting commercial interests makes for a poisonous mix.

My .02 cents

If a public BOTANICAL garden has to cut water use, the first place should be their lawns. Second should be in their restrooms/dining facilities and last their specimens that are unusual. After all, they are a botanic garden not a soccer field or restaurant.

As far as Jeri's comments that established chinas and teas are drought tolerant, they really don't have to be all that established as my garden has shown. I planted 2 chinas just as the heat hit in a really hot area (probably should not have done it) and then managed to forget to add them to my drip system. They survived and bloomed some. They are in the area of the drip so the ground does have some moisture, but even that drip did not get run much more than once a week for a gallon or two of water max per plant. If it was cool, we skipped a week. And this is in some poor soil.

Probably, some one took advice from some one not so interested in preserving the past but what can be easily bought. The problem with that line of thinking, is that if I wanted to go see "Iceberg" in bloom, I can go to most any garden department or mall and never have to pay the price of admission. I can go see all the current offerings at my local nurseries-Windmill, La Sumida-GreenThumb-Otto etc and also never pay a penny for the privilege.

Will Decanso keep the camellias or lilacs? Or should I skip the drive and entrance fee and just go to the nursery as well? These are the things they should have thought about.

I left my first FB comment....

BTW -- The person most-responsible for this debacle is the above-referenced Rachel Young. Of course, I'm sure it was Okayed by others in the organization, so I feel there is plenty of guilt to spread around.

I will soon have an article up on the Gold Coast Heritage Roses Group website, covering the entirety of the mess.

After writing a very critical comment on Facebook the other day I've now written a polite but rather blistering letter to Ms. Young with copies to the Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer. I included pictures from my garden file showing the most advantageous use of the old roses, glamour shots if you will, to demonstrate that these roses are not old hat but can have a wonderful presence in people's gardens now if only they knew about them. I stressed my hot location and how well they're doing on a drip system, their long period of bloom, gracefulness of the bushes compared to many modern roses and comparative ease of care, with many not even requiring a yearly pruning. I don't know if anyone will care or act on it, but at least it allowed me to voice my frustration. It will be interesting to see if I will receive the courtesy of a reply, and what possible reason she can give for this wholesale slaughter of our old roses.

I predict you get the canned letter she's already sent out.

Great you tried, Ingrid.

If we all tried, it might have an effect. It's like voting; you think your vote won't make a difference, and then if everyone thinks that.......

I'm just bumping this thread, as it's one of the most important discussions EVER undertaken here. PLEASE make your voices heard on this matter. See the contact info above.

On second thought, here's the contact info again so graciously provided by Jeri [I tried to copy it in nice bright, blood red (in homage to the massacre) to make it easy to find, but it didn't take]. Please use it.

THE GUILTY PARTIES:

THE BOARD:

Georgianna Erskine, Ned Russell, David Brown,
Sharon Thralls, Heather Sturt Haaga,
Amy Lamb, Hope Tschopik Schneider, Richard Atwater, Margaret Leong Checca,
Elizatbeth Gleason, Rodrigo Guerra, Katie King, Wendy Lees, Leah McCrary, Greg
McLemore, Peggy Miller, Timothy Morphy, Ann Murphy, Rick Neumann, Grace Russak,
Carin Salter, James Sarni, Leslie Zasa

To Contact Descanso Gardens

https://www.descansogardens.org/about-the-gardens/contact-us-2/

David R. Brown, Executive Director; 818-952-4391

Juliann Rooke, Chief Operating Officer;
818-952-4391

Rachel Young: horticulture@descansogardens.org

Public Relations: pr@descansogardens.org
818-949-7984

I will be using these contacts. I hope others do. And don't forget that they
have a Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/DescansoGardensLA/?fref=ts

I think it's time the mayor of Pasadena, Bill Bogaard, was made aware of what's going on in one of his city's major tourist attractions.

Like all mayors, he hates any adverse publicity of any attraction that draws in money-spending tourists.

And, for that matter, maybe the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce ought to be brought in to this matter. They hate adverse publicity of a public, money-generating attraction even more than the mayor hates it.

On a roll, now; how about notifying the Pasadena City Council? They have the same feelings as the mayor and C of C.

As my mother always said: "It costs nothing, and may earn everything!"

Regarding my last post,

It's time to bring in the heavy artillery.

If Descanso wants to play "Scorched Earth" we can play that game too!

It's my gut feeling that because of the money that their wedding business brings in and also that the rose garden has a big covered structure with a kitchen for catering they wanted the surrounding area to look photogenic. I always thought there was something to see and spring has always been lovely. It's not the fault of the roses that some aren't going to bloom after spring. I never thought they gave much thought to training those roses in the later years. That section became very tangled and looked anything but photogenic.

It never had a big spring show in that section of the rose garden like the beautiful Sacramento cemetery. It may have been cold enough in years past, but recently, I believe the warmer winters have made the difference. I was always waiting for a good cold year to come along. The recent warm winters have not been good for my old fruit trees and I don't think anyone anticipated the change.

I agree with the idea that big box stores pushing out inferior roses has not been good for anyone except big box stores. I like the idea that someone can go to the garden and see something special and then try it in their own garden. Or maybe they can see something rare that's not available and admire it. I know there are a few plants like that at the Huntington that I love to visit.

The feeling I have about Descanso is that most visitors will be positive about more flowers and it will draw more photographers and so they will call it a success when it's all replanted. If it has anywhere near the look that the Huntington rose garden has had these past few years, they will hear nothing but high praise from the public and wedding customers.

Yep.

Not Pasadena. La Canada-Flintridge. Lovely area, one of the prettiest in SoCal when the smog's away. But if the rains come down and down, those hills slide and slide.

Next step is to find out what this disease was. Are they talking about some mildew or other normal occurrence for old garden roses of this class, that could be lived with, or was it something more serious?* This is certainly a dramatic change, especially since this part of Descanso is supposed to be a historical display, right? If they now come in with modern roses in the same exact bed then how is that going to fit with the historical theme?

It's a definite change in focus if they are in fact simply replacing "obsolete" kinds with modern creations, in order to ostensibly Give the People What They Want. (Including demonstrating kinds believed less needful than the supposedly troublesome old girls). Unfortunately people put in charge of major collections used by the public often do make their own mark on them, for better or worse.

*Maybe this is why they are putting them in the trash, instead of offering them to another organization. Otherwise, of course, it could just be that nobody in charge wants to bother with placing the plants elsewhere - or thinks the cultivars being replaced aren't worth anyone having

I'm still waiting for a reply to my letter to Ms. Rachel Young, but I have a feeling holding my breath would not be a good idea. I tried to explain to her how the old roses that do well in this area are very decorative in the landscape but I have a feeling their little minds are made up and nothing will sway them at this point. That the public is not well served does not seem to enter into their decision-making process. I sense there is little knowledge in how to handle old roses and no interest in learning.

I had that feeling from her initial canned response..."Gardens change over time. A healthy garden requires healthy plants, and sometimes that means changing cultivars, techniques and products, based on science rather than colloquial wisdom." Long-time experience is likely dismissed as "colloquial wisdom" in that tiny mindset.

If they are coming back in right away with sometimes mosaic afflicted modern roses then that suggests the disease on the older kinds wasn't a deal breaker like hyper-virulent rose rosette - because the replacement plants would also become infested. And if part of the collection had developed root-stock incompatibility issues the answer to that was to take cuttings and replace the grafted specimens with own root plants, as Christopher Lloyd used to do as a standard procedure. With all that bed space there they probably could have lined out rows of labeled hardwood cuttings right in the ground, in a somewhat shaded place off to the side somewhere - doing a sequence of different sets over of a period of years if needed - with no greenhouse or frames, watering and fertilizing of pots or trays required.

Here in Upper California (Seattle area) you can stick pieces of mature first year rose wood in sufficiently loose soil in autumn and dig the rooted plants with substantial new top growth on them a year later, if not sooner. A childhood friend once stuck a random piece of a hybrid tea in the ground and had it grow.

Minds were obviously made up that replacing the existing plantings with "popular" roses would serve their goals better than valuing the "also-ran" types they already grew. I seriously doubt anything can be done to reverse the course. The best we can hope for is to publicly shame them for their bad stewardship of plants, donations and public trust.

That picture you posted bekizoo shows perfectly what Ms. Young has between her ears...empty space...

All rose propagation was halted, the propagation area cleared of roses & it was ordered that there was to be no more rose propagation. The roses already propagated were given away or sold at plant sales. Fortunately many were rescued by the volunteers but much more was lost. The historical roses, including HTs & Floribundas, hold no value for the present head of horticulture. She lacks all 'colloquial wisdom' & has little scientific knowledge of roses. She doesn't even like them.

The following is my response to Ms Young's e-mail to me, which was full of half truths (lies), contradictions, & just wrong on so many levels. I will be surprised if I get a response. But it is the holidays. I regret not asking whether her new 'plan' had the approval of the Descanso Garden Guild. Please feel free to use whatever I've written in letters to her and David Brown.

From: Becky Yianilos <bekizoo@aol.com>

Subject: International Rosarium at Descanso Gardens

Date: December 8, 2015 11:03:11 AM PST

To: horticulture@descansogardens.org, dbrown@descansogardens.org

Cc: pr@descansogardens.org

Dear Ms Young,

Thank you for your reply. It has created questions that I hope you will answer for me. The International Rosarium took many years of planning, consultations with experts, and donations of rare roses to create. What is the concept and new plan for the garden?
Since it is no longer a botanical rose collection guiding the visitor through the history and development of the rose, how will this new plan serve the public?
What is the timetable for executing the new plan?

Another matter of interest to me is the basis on which the choices of the current cultivars, as well as the techniques and products being used, were made. What specific scientific studies and facts were used to make these decisions?

What is the criteria for a rose to be judged a 'superstar' and one to be dismissed as a 'deadend'? Descanso was once a safe haven for roses whether they were in fashion or not. 'Iceberg', a rose bred in 1958 from two 1927 roses, wasn't the popular, widely planted landscape rose until it was rediscovered thirty years later. I understand replacing roses that may be in poor condition but don't understand why complete beds of entire classes of roses were razed and destroyed.

What varieties are being grown and studied for the American Rose Trials for Sustainability that the garden is participating in? Where is the A.R.T.S. site located at Descanso? Although the other trial sites in the A.R.T.S. study list this information, Descanso does not.

The China, Tea and other Old Garden Roses are the very definition of sustainability; 'having the capacity to endure' for generations, often found in cemeteries and old homesteads, thriving on only what nature provides. Many of them are designated 'Earth-Kind Roses', yet only a handful remain in the garden.

It seems clear that the changes made do not reflect the Mission Statement of Descanso Gardens "to practice exemplary stewardship of Descanso's distinctive character and assets". Tragically, its 'unique and specialized botanic rose collection of historical significance and rare natural beauty' has not been preserved.


Becky Yianilos

From: Public Relations <pr@descansogardens.org>

Subject: Re: Descanso Rose Garden

Date: November 18, 2015 12:12:02 PM PST

Thank you for contacting Descanso Gardens! We shared your message with Rachel Young. Her response is below:

Dear Ms. Yianilos,

I want to assure you that Descanso Gardens cares deeply about roses and is committed to presenting this most beloved of flowers for the enjoyment of our visitors. The International Rosarium was built in 1994, and 20 years later is showing its age. It is well loved, but also well used and has significant underlying problems, including soil compaction, nutsedge infestation, drainage issues, encroaching shade and aging rose rootstock.

Three years ago, we created a triage plan to improve the garden immediately while working toward long-term solutions. To improve the soil Descanso began an all organic care regime. This makes the garden healthier for the plants, visitors and the wildlife. Thanks to this effort, our roses have shown more new cane growth and overall health in the last two years than was apparent five years ago.

You mentioned in your email that several collections have been removed. Many of the roses listed are still in the garden, including the vintage teas, the Dots, the Clarks and the polyanthas. And yes, we are adding new roses to our beds. After consulting with rose experts, including Tommy Cairns and Tom Carruth, we began replacing aging roses that were near the end of their lifespan. Grafted roses live 10 to 20 years, and most of ours were over 20 years old.

The Descanso Gardens Collection Policy calls for removing plants in poor condition. These plants are researched by our plant records department. If they are unavailable at nurseries on the West Coast, they are potted and propagated on site, and eventually shared with rose nurseries and other rose gardens.

Gardens change over time. A healthy garden requires healthy plants, and sometimes that means changing cultivars, techniques and products, based on science rather than colloquial wisdom. We are currently participating in the American Rose Trials for Sustainability to ascertain which roses thrive best in Southern California. The history of rose breeding is fascinating and has many superstars, but it also has dead ends. We want to introduce the public to these superstars, so they get excited about growing roses.

With best regards,

Rachel Young
Director of Horticulture and Garden Operations

I suppose her horticultural studies did not teach her that old roses grown on their own roots can survive at least 50 years if not longer. I know Jackie had a Le Vesuve that was around 100 years old. Her "colloquial wisdom" statement is so patronizing. It would be nice if she had even a scintilla of the knowledge that the combined members of this forum have. It strikes me as a very patronizing letter with the clear indication that they will do as they please. I had a short response to my letter saying they were very busy right now and would send me an answer at some later date. I simply don't think this person is the right one to have a position as important as hers, since I don't believe she can do justice to the concept of a genuinely inclusive and historically interesting and informative rose garden. A pity, it will be just another colorful mix of modern roses that will never again convey the magic, mystery and romance of roses in all their variety and full glory. D..n that woman!

Don't hold your breath! I still haven't received an answer to my email but really don't expect one. I asked questions they can't answer. There was no plan, there was no criteria for the cultivars selected & the roses given to them by the A.R.T.S. study never were planted but died unattended in their cans. According to a L ATimes article, Ms Young has a Master's degree is in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from UCLA. I looked online for the courses that degree offers & saw only a few that could be of any horticultural value. There was a course that included 'conservation biology of plant populations' but clearly she was absent that day. Not only would I not consider her a horticulturist, neither did the volunteers or gardeners that I talked to at Descanso. Everyone was really shocked that someone so unqualified was appointed head of horticulture. The then head of the rose garden quit the next day. I assume that she was working there because it was the only job she could find. Her being appointed to such a position was wrong person being there at the right time. Descanso couldn't afford a real horticulturist, simple as that. I am sorry there wasn't a policy in place where changes couldn't be made without being approved by the Guild that was formed to protect the garden in the first place. The terrible irony was the Descanso rose garden showed how many different classes & varieties of roses could be incorporated into and be a part of a beautiful landscape. They didn't have to be isolated in, as John Bagnasco called them, 'rose ghettos'. Once a leader, Decanso has now set rose, promotion, preservation & education back decades. All the more reason for us to actively support and promote the remaining rose foundations, public gardens, nurseries and societies.

Ok the shade excuse for that big bed is just BS. Maybe some of the grafted roses became weak over time but many had self rooted and were off their grafts anyway. The very edge of the garden was shaded in the morning but most of the beds had plenty of sun. More than some of mine get. I can understand if the gallicas didn't like So. Cal's alkaline soil and water but then say so.

None of the excuses for the decimation of the rose garden hold water. The camellias require acid conditions & the lilacs need chill hours. They're still there.

Agreed, but neither requires the "attention" roses do to remain acceptably attractive. You expect those to appear as they appear in each season. We "demand" roses always be "on stage". We've been spoiled by over a century of "ever flowering" roses. If there were ever flowering camellias and lilacs, you can be sure the once flowering types wouldn't be there. Had there been societies for the other plant types as rabidly promoting chemical intervention to maintain them in as artificially "healthy" condition as the ARS has provided the chemical industry, I'm sure they would be as well known for being "difficult and demanding" as the roses are. The oaks provide all the acidity the camellias and azaleas require and the "Descanso Hybrid Lilacs" Dr. Lammerts selected and distributed through Descanso Distributors in the first half of the last century receive all the "chill" they require in much of the Los Angeles area so they flower as expected. Had it not been for Dr. Lammerts' efforts and Descanso Distributors, we very likely wouldn't have the lilacs, camellias, rhododendrons and azaleas so liberally sprinkled over the state. Not that their basic assumptions aren't fatally flawed.

You make some very interesting points that I had not thought enough about. I also knew nothing about Lammerts developing special lilacs for Descanso. Diane

Take a look at some of the articles linked at this Google search, Diane. I think you'll find some interesting information in them.

Kim, I think knowing what cool things Descanso has done in the past just makes it harder to 'digest' the cool things they've undone (and the uncool things they have done) in such a short time span.

Is the Guild just a social club, or do they actually have any say about what goes on in the gardens?

Virginia

If the person in charge of the rose garden quit one day after the arrival of Ms. Young, that would be an indication that no one would have anything to say. She must have come prepared with an agenda and didn't waste any time discussing the fate of the roses. I sincerely hope she's so demonstrably unqualified that her tenure there will be short, but obviously a huge amount of harm can be done in a very short time.

I have no idea, Virginia. I knew someone who preceded Wen and she found dealing with the Guild sufficiently unpleasant that she also left. She had very good qualifications and could have been wonderful there. Of course that was a number of years ago. Who knows what has transpired in the years since? Yes, there have been some wonderful things done in past decades, but there was also an exploding market, particularly here in Southern California to absorb all those creations and result in a very nice, steady cash flow. Social and political changes since have resulted in all that drying up as awfully as the water table here in the West.

The ever blooming feature originates primarily with east Asian wild roses that grow where most years it rains buckets all summer. It bears repeating that if sustainability (including an ability to live through dry summers) is supposed to become the theme at Descanso wild and old garden roses that bloom in spring and then do "nothing" all summer should be the backbone of the collection. Replacing these with newer introductions that will attempt to grow and flower the whole time from spring to fall would appear to be a move in the opposite direction.

There is a big difference between a wild or old garden rose that makes a nice display of appealing flowers in spring (perhaps to be followed by colorful hips later) and no rose at all.

I flipped through this one at a library this weekend. The picture of what I think was one of the new plantings in the Rockefeller garden looks like the picture of Cairns' back yard at the page I linked to above.

Peter E. Kukielski is the former curator of Peggy Rockefeller Rose
Garden at New York Botanical Garden. He implemented a 2007 renovation
project of the garden with a new mission based on disease resistance and
sustainability. Under Peter's leadership, the garden received the Rose
Garden Hall of Fame Award for 2010 and was voted "America's Best Public
Rose Garden Display" by the All American Rose Selections committee

http://www.timberpress.com/books/roses_without_chemicals/kukielski/9781604693546

Can anyone give the forum an update as to where things stand now?

Unfortunately, I can't give an update on the current conditions at Descanso. It just was too difficult & heartbreaking to continue to go there. The last time I visited the rose garden was June 2016 with Anita Clevenger. She bore witness to the sad destruction of what once was a prominent & unique Southern California destination rose garden. It was obvious that it could only be included in the pre-conference tour for the upcoming October, 2016 HRF Conference, 'No Rose Is Safe: Preserving Roses in a Challenging World', as an example of the worst that can happen to roses in a public garden. At the time of our visit, the greatly diminished collection of Alister Clark roses was struggling under the shade of the overgrown trees above them. Lammerts roses were also struggling amongst Knock Outs. There were only a couple of Dot roses left. The Polyantha beds were still there and they hadn't yet tackled the tangled mess the Centifolia beds had become. The torn up Gallica beds still had not been planted & the plowed up roses were sprouting up again from the remaining roots. Some of the newly planted roses had black spot and were virused. For Star Roses & Weeks to have donated virused roses is inexcusable. But that was two years ago & I have no idea what has happened to the garden since. Seeing as they got off to such a bad start with people who really know little about roses, I can't imagine it's gotten better. They truly have no concept of what they destroyed. Molly Malinick has the title of Rose Garden Horticulturalist there, was fresh out of school, very young but enthusiastic. To her credit she attended the conference. I hope she learned something.

So sad.

" For Star Roses & Weeks to have donated virused roses is inexcusable. " Hi Becky, except, they could only donate what they had to sell. Star has a very LONG history of virused roses. Weeks at least tried to clean their stock, until the bankruptcy. But, even the efforts had glitches. Flutterbye was a Weeks creation and introduction. It came out with RMV. Not something budded by someone else. WEEKS budded the rose created in the WEEKS pipeline and released it with RMV. Showbiz was a Tantau import put out through Weeks...WITH RMV. It definitely didn't COME from Germany with RMV as a new seedling. I hadn't seen a new introduction put out by Star without RMV up to five or six years ago, when I stopped paying attention to new introductions. I saw NOTHING from Star which didn't demonstrate symptoms until that time. How could they NOT donate RMV infected roses?

Hello, dear friend! I think the virused roses were actually from Star. Haven't they heard of USD's Rose Clean Stock Program? It's been around for almost 60 years. Either Peace or Sunsprite or both were virused. My memory is rusty and has been compromised from 2 years of Prosecco because of this administration. Unfortunately there is not enough sparkling wine in the world to blot out this latest horrific travesty. I digress, back to Descanso. I thought I had made notes from my last visit but can't find them. The batch of roses donated 2 years ago that prompted the razing of beds of rare roses, were only a few unremarkable varieties. They really were what didn't sell the previous year. We were there in June & already they were showing signs of stress & disease. I still get angry over removing mature bushes of Reine des Violettes & replacing them with KokoLoco. I am assuming that Star & Weeks has continued to use Descanso as a dumping ground for their unsold roses. It's only a guess. I really don't have the heart to visit the garden again.

A number of the rose comments appear to be based on what I consider outmoded simplified models of the rose virus situation. There is now a federally funded rose virus program which, hopefully, will clarify our present understanding of rose viruses diseases.

http://rosebreeders.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=55690

----------------------------------------------------------------

I feel that the results below are an example that the actual science is not as simple as some have presented it.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/davis-virus-report-no-date-of-preparation-given-dsvw-vd~5297887?n=3

-------------------------------------------------------------------

My rose virus related information can be reached from:

https://sites.google.com/site/rosevirusindexpage/

Ms. Rachael Young is still Director of Horticulture and Garden Operations--looks rather young for such a responsible position. My guess--sheer speculation--would be that she is a cat's paw for commercial interests. At least one can make sure she never gets hired for any similar position in one's own city or county. We have seen this movie before and it breaks our hearts every time. Hostile takeovers of renowned organizations are ongoing since about the mid 1990s. Look up Seed Saver's Exchange for just one example.

If I were involved in a non-profit today, I think I would insist on an upper limit to donations of cash and maybe even in kind contributions. No more than $1000 per person per year, for example.

Non profits need all the $$$ they can get, waste from the powers that be notwithstanding. When he died last year, a dear friend & great rosarian, Ivy Bodin, left a generous bequest to two public gardens, Alta Vista Botanical Gardens and Rancho Buena Vista Adobe in Vista, CA. After filling his small garden, he planted heritage roses throughout both gardens. At Alta Vista landscape designer, Naomi Stein created The Ivy Bodin Reception Rose Garden. I planted it with over 70 different varieties of roses, with plans to plant more in the future. The project at the Rancho Adobe will be a restoration of the rose gardens that Ivy planted, including more historically correct roses to the time period of the Adobe. With the demise of Descanso, the only rose garden of heritage & rare roses in Southern California is The Huntington. I hope these two gardens will become destination rose gardens that preserve & promote our favorite flower. To these gardens credit, they are using every penny Ivy left to taking care of the roses. Five years ago, James Delahanty left $1000 to Descanso to buy roses from Burling. To date, only $200 was used for the purpose it was donated. Rachel Young was hired 'in house' because they didn't want to pay the higher salary for a competent qualified horticulturalist. Making matters worse, the curator of the rose garden quit the next day. The destruction of the garden was done with the approval of David Brown, the garden's executive director. The International Rosarium was unlike any other in the world & the loss of it is a travesty.