The tables groaned under the weight of the blooms. I don't think I've ever seen more cultivars at the Celebration. Carolyn Parker brought buckets of long blooming stems of large climbers. It was magical! We had contributors from as far away as Mendocino, Southern California and California's Gold Country. The San Francisco Rose Society had a table and loaned vases. The Celebration is a labor of love of many dedicated volunteers from the Heritage Roses Groups, The Heritage Rose Foundation and individual rosarians who organize the rental of the Community Center, who disseminate information about Old Rose organizations, who buy and serve food, who set-up and break-down, who operate silent auctions and raffles, and who supply blooms. I only managed to bring 66 different cultivars because Janelle, who drove from Sacramento, spent most of Saturday selecting and labeling blooms with me. Two armies of volunteers when to the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden with Jeri Jennings and to Vintage Gardens with Kristina Osborn and Carolyn Parker. More visitors should have been there to enjoy the beauty of the day. Each year I learn something while comparing blooms and observations with other rosarians. For example, the lovely but obviously mislabeled "Rosa nutkana" I received from Forest Farm that looks like a 6-foot tall Hybrid Spin and that has been blooming for a month now, seems to be Rosa webbiana. My "Georgetown Tea" from Vintage does seems to be the right cultivar. "Schmidt's Buff Giant," which was was light pink in my garden, matches the palest yellow Anna Olivier from the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden. Two of us are convinced that "Fiddletown Pink Noisette" is the same as Laure Davoust. The blooms and foliage have similar shapes, but the habit of the two is different. The "Paul Noel" Hybrid Wichurana I received from Ashdown appears to be François Juranville. I received a small plant of a double form of Rosa californica that is clearly the true species, unlike the the rose in commerce as "Rosa californica plena," which is, at the least, a hybrid, and maybe not related to Californica at all. It was quite a day. I went home sated, exhausted, starved.

I now have a brief catalog of the HRG Silent Auction roses. I could give you just names, but descriptions with photos are much better, yes? Later today, it should be available on the HRG and Gold Coast HRG websites -- and I will post here, when it is up. Meanwhile, it is in PDF format -- so . . . If you message me, I will be happy to send it as an attachment. Here are just two of the roses offered. Jeri Jennings, For The Heritage Roses Group

In addition to these roses, we are contributing Vina Banks and Phillips and Rix Pink China Climber from the Sacramento Historic Rose Garden. Both of these roses are unique, once-bloomers. We grow Vina Banks as a large, fountaining shrub, and Phillips and Rix smothers an archway there. Beautiful, unique roses - perfect for a silent auction, don't you think? Anita

Let's face it, Kim -- Many of those roses were intended from the git-go to grow as budded roses. They just can't match that performance on their own roots. (Yes. SOME can. Many cannot.) My grandmother grew Forty-Niner -- but I have no recollection of it being that striking.