Would you care to put a limit on which groups you're interests have landed on?

A garden with once bloomers will not have the warmer weather roses. A huge collection of gallicas and noisettes won't be together. Nor will chinas and rugosas.

There are representative varieties from all aspects of the rich history of the rose in the Huntington collection. Beyond a few species, the introduction dates span from 1540 up to the present day, including some roses that have yet to be introduced. The preponderance of the collection spans the 19th through 21st centuries, a time when the rose reached a pinnacle of popularity

Rose Garden | The Huntington

Thanks, Embothrium! I had a sneaking suspicion that it would be in CA for some reason! ;)

There isn't a one or two-week sweet spot on the calendar when one could see a majority of them in bloom, is there?

Huntington rose garden is wonderful! Roses flower from April to June. I think the first week in May is usually very good. But not all of them flower at the same time and it can vary by year. The Teas tend to be earlier. Gallicas and Rugosas are not really represented since they need cold winter. They have a David Austin section, Tea section, old climbers, Polyanthas, Cl. Hybrid Teas and Hybrid Teas, which is the largest section. There are some wonderful old species types in the Chinese garden too.

If you are looking for the most extensive collection, you cannot go wrong with the San Jose Heritge Rose Garden, http://www.heritageroses.us.

And Jeri is right, I used to also recommend the Sacramento City Cemetery Rose Garden, a glorious collection beautifully tended. Unfortunately these days it has been reduced to a remnant of its former self.

Go ahead, Folly. Make me start crying again . . .

What happened to the Sacramento City Cemetery Rose Garden?

Tony, they decided (historically incorrectly) that their cemetery should not have plants and flowers.

Tony, it is a horror what the city allowed there. It makes no sense.

I showed the City this photo of the cemetery from 1860. They of course ignored it.

I guess they want to mow and spray without having to worry about the roses being in their way. Someone should run for City Council or Mayor who will promise to restore it.

That's such a pretty photo of the cemetery, even though it's black and white and you can't see the color of the roses! I love roses and cemeteries, so when my family discovered that lovely place about 10 years ago, it promptly became a very favorite spot for me. I have some photos on my wall of my husband and I in that place as well as some sweet photos of my children enjoying the flowers and just the ambience of the whole place...so much history! We've been gone from the Sacramento area for over 3 years now, but I heard it's a far cry now from what it used to be. I've been tempted to stop by and see it when we get through the area on business. Not sure if I really do want to see it now though... except, I really do want Jesse Hildreth and if he's still growing there ( which I don't know)I'd be sorely tempted to take a cutting!

They did not allow their volunteers in the garden who had been taking care of it for free.

About having warm climate roses and those requiring winter chill in the same garden: they can grow in (what I call) a temperate Mediterranean climate, with abundant winter chill but temperatures rarely falling below the high teens, and summer heat. I grow roses in such a climate, and Gallicas and Co. and Teas, Chinas, etc. get along together fine. The issue in my garden isn't temperatures, but soil: the heavy clay is better suited to the European once-bloomers than it is to the Teas and their kin. But where the soil can be made hospitable, the Teas and others are amazing. This kind of climate would possibly be found in parts of the Pacific Northwest, starting from mid- or northern California and northwards: those of you who live in the parts can say better than I can. I don't know of any other part of the U.S. where this kind of climate is found.

P.S. I should add that their bloom times are rather different. Warm climate roses will generally flower whenever conditions are favorable: not too cold or too hot, water in adequate supply. In our strange sunny winter, 'Sanguinea' has had some flowers all winter, and the other Teas have had a few blooms for a while. Once-blooming roses tend, in my experience, to start later than the warm climate roses, and to flower on a more regular schedule. In my garden, before the weather went crazy, I expected their flowering season to run from about mid-May to lateish June, with the Musk Rose and some ramblers running a bit later.

Melissa, you are right about being in a sweet spot and growing all roses here too. The gallicas are beautiful and so are the Teas. My Teas do not really bloom all Winter like they do in California, but I can grow lilacs and OGR Europeans as well as the Teas so it is a great trade off.

JudiJuneBug -- I cannot bear to go there now, though there is one rose I really want cuttings from. But if Jesse Hildreth isn't still there, ask me privately, and I'll tell you where the mother plant is.

Melissa - sounds like I need to make that trip to Italy that I've always wanted to!

Thank you, Jeri. I'll check next time I have a chance to stop by the cemetery. I'll let you know what I find. I'm not sure when we'll be in Sacramento again. I was there in January, but it was cold and I was down with a flu bug, so I wasn't up to any rose rustling at the time!

Tony, good idea, though, amazingly, roses aren't that big in Italy, especially not the old roses I grow. This country could be the garden of the world if Italians paid attention, but not enough of them do.

@Melissa Northern Italy zone 8 that is so surprising about Italy! I would've thought that with Italy being the birthplace of the ancient "rose of Paestum" (Autumn Damask) and the supposed country of origin of the Portlands, roses and especially OGRs from those classes would be a point of national horticultural pride!

This is what I've observed in my two decades in Italy: take note that it refers in particular to my part of the country, and may not be universal. I remember going down once to close to Lucca for a vacation, and being absolutely enchanted by the town, which had a drastically different garden sense than what I see around here, much freer and more plant-loving.

Modern day Italy got going after WWII, particularly in the fifties and sixties, and the garden aesthetic, where it exists at all (as opposed to just growing plants for their individual prettiness or to cut flowers) reflects to some extent the modernistic "clean" design of that era, as well as a desire to forget the dirt, poverty, and struggle against nature of rural agricultural life that defined the existence of so many Italians in earlier decades. Gardens tend to be formless in terms of overall design, and yet tightly controlled, weeded, pruned, and simplified, and as close to unchanging as anything not plastic can be. Roses are prized for their productivity, so that repeat bloom ranks high, as do strong colors. Italians prize control and are great diggers and pruners even when those practices aren't appropriate. It's a vestigial behavior, I think, from the tradition of growing plants for food and drink: vegetable garden, orchard, vineyard, all requiring regular intervention. Italians also seem to mistrust plants that are opulent and large: another vestige of the struggle against nature. The more recent generations seem to be rethinking this attitude, but it's dying hard. Anyway, I see these as powerful tendencies though by no means universal. I know of some gardens in my area that are obviously the work of plant enthusiasts; and I can think of one, possibly two, that I genuinely approve of. My garden is extremely un-Italian.

This is a list of old and older roses I've found locally. 'Centifolia' and 'Alba Maxima' are almost the only antique once-bloomers I've seen; there are a very few others I can't identify. I know of one plant of 'Quatre Saisons', thriving among brush by a ditch. 'Alberic Barbier' and the double yellow Lady Banks rose show up now and then; I've seen a plant of 'Félicité-Perpétue' and one of 'Mermaid'; and one sees here and there old Multiflora ramblers of the 'Dorothy Perkins' type, with lax canes and small rosettes, late-blooming. 'New Dawn' pops up now and then. I've seen a few Hybrid Perpetual-looking survivors hanging on here and there. A common passalong rose, very lovely, is probably 'Mme. Jules Bouché', an old Tea-looking HT. Oh, I've seen 'Old Blush' a few times. 'Queen Elizabeth' used to be a popular passalong rose, but I haven't noticed it as much lately, though it may still be there. Many of these roses have been abandoned and are still hanging on on their own. I don't know that I've ever seen a Tea rose locally outside my own garden.

Melissa, that echos what I saw in Paris too at Rosarie de l' Hay. The shrub roses were pruned to within an inch of their life except the climbers. There seemed to be an overly controlled esthetic.

I know now I should have gone to the Sacramento City Cemetery before it was decimated if I wanted to see OGRs growing more naturally. So glad you are bringing some wild back to Italy. I loved Italy in 2019 but the art was the highlight and the food.

Sheila, we'll all have to bring the wild back, in all our gardens. The Italian countryside is very beautiful, at least in the hills and mountains which are most of the country, but it's so to speak accidental: the people who live here don't notice. More and more I feel we have to do it ourselves.

You might drop by the next time you come to Italy: I'd enjoy talking plants.

Thank you, Melissa. I hope that could happen. You could visit here too.

Keep it up Melissa, and I know some soft-hearted, romantic Italians will catch the OGR bug! Especially the Teas, I would hope!