Lisa do they do mailorder?

Good question, Alana. I am interested also.

Jin

Good luck, Lisa. I know you'll return with some wonderful roses.

Sorry girls. I thought I had explained in my earlier post that Cliff is downsizing and giving away some of his roses to locals who can come dig them up themselves. Apparently he used to own and operate Eurodesert Roses. I think it’s been closed for some time already. He made the agonizing choices of what to keep and what to let go. He said that letting “a few hundred” go, would make life easier and enable him to take better care of his remaining roses. He did a wonderful job organizing the roses that he was giving away. Each person who was coming had a particular colored/patterned ribbon assigned to him/her. Each rose had a plastic ribbon attached to it, so it was easy to find your roses. My roses all had a ribbon that was yellow with red polkadots on them. It didn’t take me long to realize that whoever had the roses with blue and white striped ribbons had the cream of the crop. Shortly thereafter it dawned on me that these were probably the roses Cliff was keeping for himself. He confirmed it when I asked him:)

We are in the car and on the way. I’ll try to take as many special rose pictures as possible. Lisa

Have fun! I am looking forward to hearing about your new plants

Ok thanks for explaining Lisa! Cannot wait to see those pictures and what you get! Lucky you!

Unsure of ID. Amazing scent!

He tried to talk me into taking it, Romogen. I really was tempted after a whiff of it, but thankfully I didn’t give in to temptation. That’s a HUGE and beautiful plant you posted above! If I had all the space, energy, and water in the world, I would have come home with SO many roses! Cliff is SUCH a wonderful and generous man. I almost began to “be afraid” to admire a rose TOO much. Next thing I knew, he’d be offering it to me, from his own collection! He was just wonderful to talk to, and we plan to stay in touch. I look forward to seeing him in November at the next rose auction in San Diego.

I’m in the back seat, crammed in with the roses. We’re on our way home. I had to cut back ‘Princess Josephine de Flandres’ quite a bit, but I couldn’t stand to throw away the blooms. I’ve got them in a water bottle for the ride home. Maybe I should try to root some of these pieces. I can hardly find any information on this beautiful old polyantha.

Beautiful pictures Lisa!

Wow, how wonderful! Yes, I would say definitely try to root them. Seems like a very rare rose. Perhaps you can eventually provide cuttings of these roses to one of the nurseries so they can propagate and sell.

How did Cliff get all of these roses originally? Did he import them?

-Chris

Glorious!!! Look at that sweet porcelain pink polyantha! I love that class.

Oh, I love polyanthas! Now I'm a tiny bit jealous. Lisa, I hope you will take a lot of pictures and share them with us. Your garden will be something special with these new roses.

He had more rare polyanthas than I could believe. He must love that class as well. He did indeed import many rare roses from Europe, acquiring the necessary permits and leaving them with the USDA for two years. I think at least 3 of mine are from the imported ones.

I’d heard about ‘Mutabilis’ for years and even seen pictures. It wasn’t until Cliff and I were standing in front of it talking, and I found myself admiring a very unique and beautiful rose. It was ‘Mutabilis’. My pictures probably do not do it juctice, but it was a sight to behold.

Lisa if you do manage to root that little poly, let me know. I adore them, and I'd love to give it a try. Mutabalis is a gorgeous rose. I got it as a "mystery" band from RVR once. It didn't live past that first year in my brutal climate, but I loved it's butterfly like, changeable blossoms.

I sure will. I’m going to try to root this one too. I know it’s not a rare one, but it was absolutely beautiful! The blooms were a lemon-lime color. Cliff gave me some cuttings.

Oh my gosh, Lisa, that rose in the back seat has so many blooms. I think you have a definite winner there. I remember Mrs. R. M. Finch from the UC Berkeley garden and that was decades ago. The "Snow Princess" in the last picture is lovely. With the addition of all these roses you are going to have not only a beautiful but notable rose garden. When I lived on a five-acre property, I had five plants of Mutabilis.

Once I have everything in order, you’ll have to come see them, Ingrid. You may have to come before everything is in order, otherwise you’ll never come. We’ll wait until things don’t look like this, though.....

That’s all the isolated roses we brought home from the desert. Just spraying and drenching them in their containers has been a chore. I want to be careful about pests. Now the planting must begin and the weather forecast is for 90F!?! Will we ever get our rain? I feel like crawling back into my bed today, but I can’t let these roses just sit like this. At least Rev H is planted. That’s a start!

I always dismissed ‘Mutabilis’ as a rose that didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t know what it was when it first caught my eye. The more I looked at it, the more intrigued I became. It was gorgeous! If I had the space, I’d grow it for sure. Sometimes you just have to see a rose growing to really appreciate it. I never expected to like it, and from its color description, I wouldn’t have expected you(Ingrid) to like it either. After seeing it, I love it. Clearly you must love it as well, if you grew five of them at one time! I never would have appreciated this rose had I not seen it yesterday. Lisa