Whew! What a Week.

Last week was filled with even more responsibilities and activities than normal, if you can believe it ... and most of you already think that I'm the most Energizer Bunny-like person that you know.  Final preparations for the Rose Work Day at Hollywood Cemetery filled almost every available moment, with maps and notes spread all over the dining table and kitchen counter, and my To Do list close by so I didn't forget something important.  

In between all of this, I made time for some fun stuff ... lunch with friends on Thursday and Friday, a day of shopping on Wednesday with our youngest daughter, and a little bit of garden work (a VERY little bit) in my own garden, to help keep me sane and grounded.  

The rose day at Hollywood was yesterday.  Volunteers arrived at 10am.  Instructions were given, teams chosen, assignments handed out, and everyone disbursed into the cemetery to do their thing.  I circulated and checked in on the volunteers as they worked.

This was the only photo that I took all day ... fallen magnolia petals.

Now that this is behind me, I can turn my full attention to my own garden.  Spring arrived overnight, according to the calendar, but my garden thinks that it's here already.  Grass is growing, daffodils are blooming, and my roses are beginning to leaf out.  I am really excited to get to my pruning, to put the roses into their best shape for their big show in May.

(Speaking of roses ... Save the date:  Open Garden this year will be on Memorial Day, May 30, 2016.)

What I Did Last Week

According to the calendar, spring is near.  Weather-wise last week, spring was very evident ... temperatures far above average, with light breezes, some cloudy days and some sunny days.  You will not be surprised when I tell you that I spent a good part of the week doing things outdoors.

1.  At this time of year, my main focus is on my responsibilities as the manager of the rose collection at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.  (Our rose volunteer day is March 19, six days from today.)  In February and early March, I use whatever nice days we have to go to the cemetery to visit all of the roses to assess their condition and to note make notes about what work they need.  As of now, all of the roses have been evaluated, and their location is verified on the cemetery map.  All that's left to do is to type up my notes and turn them into instructions for each volunteer team next Saturday.

Dorothy was helping me work on the map.

2.  Last weekend, I attended the American Rose Society Colonial District Pre-Spring Meeting.  I love having the opportunity to get away to be with my rose peeps, to listen and learn at the presentations, and to catch up with friends.  During one of the breaks, I was approached by the District Director and asked if he could appoint me to be the Old Garden Rose Chair for the District.  I agreed ... the appointment was made ... and now we'll see exactly what this position entails.  I'm pretty excited about it.

3.  On the way home from the rose meeting, I stopped by one of my favorite stores, Old Covesville Store on Route 29 south of Charlottesville.  There are always amazing and wonderful things in there for sale.  On this trip, I spotted a large Steiff tiger that is similar to a smaller one that I had when I was a child.  No hesitation ... I scooped that tiger up and happily brought him home with me.

Here he was in the store.

and on the seat of my car.

4.  I have known for a while that the windows of my greenhouse needed some work.  The glazing compound in most of them is dry and cracked, and largely missing on some of the windows.  (This can be the downside of using salvaged windows for a project.)  This winter, as some of the window panes began to fall out, I knew that the job of reglazing the windows needed to be pushed to the top of my list.  Turns out, when these windows were made in the 1960s, the manufacturer only used glazing compound to hold in the glass ... without glazing points to mechanically pin the panes into place.  

The only way to finish a project is to get started, and I did just that on Wednesday.  It takes me about an hour to do one window ... to scrape out the old glazing compound, reset the glass, and put down the new glazing compound.  This is a project that I will work on a little at a time.  Hopefully, by the end of summer, I will have most of the 46 windows done.  (My REAL dream is to finally have the greenhouse glazed, sided and trimmed, and painted by fall.)

Not perfect, but good enough.  I will scrape and prime the windows once the glazing compound cures.

I saw this reflection as I was working.

5.  My other outside project is the reclamation of the Rambler Fence.  It's the same situation as the rest of my gardens, where weeds sprouted in unnatural concentrations and took over in what seemed like the blink of an eye.  With the Ramblers, there was the added complication of their rampant growth ... and they became hay stacks on the fence while my attention was elsewhere for the past couple of years.

Little by little, I have been cutting back the Ramblers and training what remains onto their wires on the fence.  They are small and kind of pitiful right now.  I have also dug out a couple of duplicate Ramblers, and one that had Rose Rosette Disease last year, and replaced them with ones from my stock pile of pots.

When I originally designed this garden in 2007, I planted Tea roses between and in front of the Ramblers.  Some Tea roses can be a bit winter tender ... the winters of 2013 and 2014 were brutal and losses to these roses were catastrophic.  Instead of lamenting their loss, I see this as an opportunity and space to plant eight new roses in the empty spots.

Ramblers cut back, dead Tea roses dug up, and the beginnings of landscape fabric laid in this part of the garden.

Yesterday, I finished the landscape fabric and laid mulch around the roses themselves.  I have to get more mulch in order to finish ... which should happen over the course of the next week.

6.  With nice weather comes convertible season!  I was out in my Mustang twice last week, practicing with its new stick shift.  I'm getting much better at it ... and I almost don't panic if I have to stop and then pull out on an incline.

I have been using the uphill part of our long driveway to practice.

All in all, it was a VERY good week.  How about you ... what have you been up to?

Say Cheese ... Or Maybe Not.

I will say this right up front ... the words "Let me take your picture" make me cringe.  I am working to change my attitude about pictures, but it's not easy.

As an exercise to help me get more comfortable with this, I am publicly posting the photos that were taken of me during Hollywood Cemetery's rose work day a few weeks ago.  Some are okay, some are not-so-okay, but all of them appear to be true representations of my expressions that day.

Me with Mabel, one of the Hollywood staffers that I adore, before we got started.

Giving instructions to the group.  I can see the frustration on my face, as things were a bit confused while I divided the group into teams.

Group photo.  Can you find me?  Notice that I am distracted by something ... I guess my mind was elsewhere.

Richmond Rose Society members.  I'm okay with this one.  At least I was paying attention.

Photo + talking = awkward.

Last week, after my program at the Chesapeake Bay Garden Club, one of the members wanted to take a photo of me with the club president for their newsletter .  I was dressed professionally, and my hair and make up were done, but I still panicked a little inside.  I did it anyway, without protest or hesitation ... I'm getting better.

Sunday Snapshot ... Hollywood Cemetery Rose Work Day

Saturday was the day that I look forward to, and plan for, all year ... the day when volunteers gather to provide annual maintenance to approximately 100 of the roses at Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery.  The weather was glorious, the volunteers were excited to be a part of the event, and the roses are always better for the pruning and attention that they receive.  I love coordinating the event ... and I am always very relieved and exhausted when it's over.

This year, I took two photos ... two ... that's all.  I left my camera in my car, because I didn't want to haul it around and/or worry about it while I was working. 

I didn't take a photo of this rose before we started on it.  The "Crenshaw Musk Rose" is one of the most historically significant roses at Hollywood Cemetery.  It didn't look its best last year because I forgot to do any work on it ... there were weeds growing around and through it, and lots of winter-killed and bloomed out canes clogging the plant.  It took us almost two hours to do this, as three of us carefully worked our way from the bottom to top, outside to inside, evaluating and reshaping the entire plant.

Pruning like this is appropriate for a vigorous, repeat flowering rose like the Musk Rose.  It maintains the rounded, upright shape of this rose.  I would never do this to Hollywood's once-blooming roses like the Hybrid Chinas and free-standing ramblers ... it would ruin their shape and rob them of most of their personality.  (Yes, I believe that roses have personalities.)

The staff at Hollywood Cemetery does a great job of helping me prepare for the arrival of the volunteers, and the Friends of Hollywood provides yummy boxed lunches for everyone.  I ate mine in the sunshine, while chatting with some of the volunteers.

At the end of the day, I was spent.  Goth Gardener was there, as she promised.  We ended the day with another Silly Selfie ... one that documents our extreme level of fatigue.

It is such a relief to be finished with this.  There are a few roses that didn't get worked on, and I will inspect and do what I can for them in the next couple of weeks, and review and document the other roses to help prepare for next year's Rose Day.  

My attention now will be to focus on my OWN garden.  I'm energized and raring to go ... once I rest up from yesterday.

Happy sunny Sunday, Everybody.

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Sunday Snapshots are posts that are devoted to a moment in time that represents a slice of life in Hartwood, or wherever else I happen to be.

Did You Miss Me?

Oh, my, has it really been over a week since I checked in?  I have done so much in the past nine days, and done a whole lot of nothing, too ... if that makes sense. Let's dive right in and I will do my best to catch you up with all the fascinating things that have been happening in Hartwood.

Monday morning's view from our dining room window.

When we left off last week, I was head down, working furiously to prepare for the rose volunteer work day at Hollywood Cemetery.  This winter's cold and snow delayed my visits there to evaluate the roses till the very last minute (stressful).  In a matter of two days, I wrote up my notes, updated my rose map, divided the cemetery's roses into ten sections for the ten teams of volunteers, and made assignment sheets for each team ... and I crossed my fingers, hoping that I hadn't forgotten to do something important.

My sweet husband, clearing off my Jeep ... in case we needed to go anywhere (which we didn't)

I needn't have worried because the work day itself went off perfectly.  Twenty volunteers divided into the ten teams made quick work of the pruning and training that the roses required.  We started at 10am, and everyone was finished and on their way home by 3pm.  You will be surprised to hear that I didn't take a single photo that day.  Instead of supervising and photographing, I was a member of the crew with my own set of roses to work on.  I hope to get photos from other people that were there and share them with you soon.

Snow sure is pretty.

On Sunday, The Husband and I went to an event called "Treasures From the Attic", sponsored by our county's historical society.  The object of the event was for residents to bring items for the historians to see, so their stories and images could be recorded and preserved.  We brought the cannon ball that I found while planting roses in the garden back by our barn.  No one could say for sure what weapon it was made for, but they did agree that it probably dated from before than the Civil War.

That's The Husband's Jeep under all that snow.

For the rest of the time, I have been doing things around the house ... you know, important stuff like laundry.  I also am continuing to excavate the hoarder's paradise that I call my sewing room, and I'm making real progress up there.  One day I will show it to you.  Today is not that day.

Our front yard, looking toward the southwest.

I have been bringing pieces of furniture up from the basement and working on them in the dining room.  In the last few days, I have painted and am almost finished with two end tables, two round tables, and a small nightstand.  This clears out space in the basement, but my dining room is trashed from using it as work space, and the living room isn't much better with the finished pieces stored in there.  It feels great, though, to have so many things almost ready to take to the Lucketts Spring Market in May.

Front yard, northwest.

The calendar now says Spring, but the weather for us has been all over the place.  We had beautiful weather and temperatures in the 70s for the Saturday of our workday at Hollywood Cemetery (yay!!!!).  Two days later, on Monday, we had 8 inches of snow on the ground.  Today, the snow is all gone and it is a sunny spring-like day ... but the weather guessers are saying that we have a very good chance of another snow storm early next week.  Temperatures up -- temperatures down.  Snow, rain, sun, fog, wind ... we have had it all this month.

This is our across-the-street neighbor.

Now that the work day at Hollywood Cemetery is behind me, I can now set my sights on continuing the reclamation of my own neglected garden.  Our unusually cold winter has undoubtedly caused considerable damage to my roses, but I'm okay with that.  Any losses provide opportunities.  The cycle of the seasons is something that gardeners have to accept.  This spring, I am excited to get outside and get to work ... staying indoors for most of the winter has been making me nuts!

It's weird having been away from here for so long ... gotta get back into the habit of writing and sharing again.  I missed you guys!!

Final Preparations for Rose Work Day at Hollywood Cemetery

This winter has been an unusually cold and snowy one in many parts of the country ... here in Virginia, too.  Because of this, my preseason on-site evaluation of the roses at Hollywood Cemetery has been pushed to the very last minute ... our work day is this Saturday (March 15) and I am scrambling to make sure that I'm prepared.  

I spent all day yesterday (Monday) with Donald, the cemetery's Grounds Foreman, chipping away at the rose list.  We visited and evaluated and tagged 46 roses.  This is in addition to the 49 that The Husband and I did last month.  I feel a lot less stress about this now, since we have made so much progress in such a short amount of time.

I saw this Robin as I was leaving for the day yesterday.  He sat there while I rolled down my car window and snapped this photo with my iPhone.  I guess he was enjoying the sunshine, too.

I am hitting the road again today, for my final day of on site preparations.  There are 30 more roses left on the list to be located and evaluated ... I hope it doesn't take me all day to do this, because there are a couple of junk shops that I'd like to hit on my way home, as well as a quick stop at Trader Joes for stuff.

Wish me luck.

Hollywood Cemetery Rose Work Day

It is time for me to shift gears and begin to think about this year's Rose Work Day at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.  Last year's work day was a huge success ... making every bit of my days and days of preparation worthwhile.  This year, with the roses located and mapped and in fairly decent condition, only a day or two of on-site preparation should be necessary ahead of time.

My super-talented husband designed this ... isn't it awesome!!

If you are local, or plan to be in the area, we would love to have you volunteer to give us a hand.  I promise that you will have a good time, learn a few things, and meet some other rose lovers who feel the same way you do.  No experience is necessary ... we will teach you what to do.

Feel free to share this, to spread the word.  More hands make lighter work, and more fun!!

Happy Sunday, Everyone!

Sunday Snapshot ... Rose Day at Hollywood

Yesterday was a blur.  It was the day that I have been planning for months ... the day that volunteers descended upon the roses at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.

Here is a taste of what we did:

Heritage Rose Foundation president Stephen Scanniello, and Hollywood Cemetery board member Peter Toms, working on the Crenshaw Musk Rose.

 

Delicately pruning a rose that's struggling.

 

Thinning a very vigorous 'Archduke Charles' rose.

 

Discussing how best to attack a very overgrown, storm-damaged Tea rose.

 

Removing an invasive mulberry tree from a rose.

 

Clearing weeds and grass from the base of this rose.

I took very few photos.  Some of the volunteers and cemetery staff had their cameras in action during the day, and I can share those pics with you as soon as I get them.

It was a wonderful, wonderful day.  It's great to have a plan come off exactly as planned ... and even better when everyone has such a great time while it's happening.

Happy Sunday, Everyone!
Connie

Perfect Timing

"When should I prune my roses?"  I get asked this question all the time.  The practical advice is to prune roses in early spring when the Forsythia is blooming. 

 

 

I took these photos while I was at Hollywood Cemetery for a meeting earlier this week.  Our Rose Work Day is tomorrow ... timing turned out to be perfect, considering we chose this day months ago.  Mother Nature could have given us all sorts of problems, but she has behaved herself and has provided optimum conditions for rose pruning.

 

 

 

The cemetery and I are absolutely ready for tomorrow.  Can't wait to meet all of the volunteers and get this done!

 

(My own Forsythia isn't even showing color yet ... which means that timing for pruning and working in my own garden will also be perfect when I can get to it starting next week.)

 

 

Extra, Extra ... Hollywood Cemetery Newspaper Article

The newspaper article about my project with the roses at Hollywood Cemetery was published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Sunday.  Thank you, Tammie Smith, for writing such a wonderful account ... reading it makes me blush.  Here is the text of the article, sprinkled with my own photos of the roses that make Hollywood Cemetery such a special place.

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One by one, Connie Hilker has eyed all 130 or so roses in Hollywood Cemetery, making notes about the condition, type and growth habit.

On Saturday, she will lead a volunteer effort to provide some much-needed TLC to the roses, many of which are older varieties not readily available elsewhere.

"Mrs. B. R. Cant' growing in President's Circle.

“Some of them are struggling. Some of them are thriving. Some need only their dead wood removed, and that’s really all that should happen to them,” Hilker said. “Others are going to need a little bit more, and that’s why I’ve been visiting each one, photographing them and making notes.”

An unknown red China rose.

Hilker knows her roses. She is owner of Hartwood Roses, a Fredericksburg-area display and educational garden specializing in rare and historic roses. To say she loves roses is an understatement — she has 800 varieties. She got out of the retail business to spend more time teaching about roses.

A particularly graceful Tea rose on the Howe plot.

She has been coming to Hollywood Cemetery for the past 10 years to check out the roses, which is one reason she jumped at the chance to help when Kelly Jones Wilbanks, development director at the cemetery, came to a Richmond Rose Society meeting looking for volunteers.

'Safrano'

“All she really wanted was someone to come and do the work. Then I talked to her, and realized that they didn’t have an inventory of what they had, and I volunteered to start the process,” Hilker said.
 
That was last summer. During the fall, Hilker met with Donald Toney, grounds foreman/supervisor at the cemetery.
 
“He’s been here since 1967. … Through December and into January, he made a list of every rose he could find on the cemetery grounds. Then he took that list and put it on a map of the cemetery,” Hilker said.

This beautiful rose is probably 'Radiance'.

The roses are mapped by section and lot location. The parklike cemetery covers 135 acres. Among the people buried there are American presidents, Virginia governors and Supreme Court justices.

One of my favorite of Hollywood's roses, a once-bloomer in the Hazen plot.

Because Hilker is familiar with many of the roses and has photographed some of them during the past 10 years, she is able to spot omissions. For instance, one rose she knows is or was there is not on the map. But she has a photo she took on a previous visit.
 
“Is it not on his list because it doesn’t exist anymore? Or is it not on his list because it’s leafless and it’s growing in a crape myrtle?” Hilker said.

'Duchesse de Brabant', a Tea rose, in the Armistead plot.

Because roses are leafless and bloomless this time of year, some of the identification will have to wait. Hilker said others may have cataloged the roses, but that information is not in the cemetery’s records.

A Tea rose, probably 'Madame Joseph Schwartz'

So far, about two dozen people have volunteered for the work day, Hilker said. “We’re going to divide them up into groups. Everybody’s going to have a section of the cemetery to work on and a list of roses within that section.”
 
Most of the volunteers are people who simply like roses and want to help, but Hilker also has asked some rose experts to come and help mentor.

'Archduke Charles', a beautiful China rose.

“All of the roses that are here, for the most part, are old roses, but you never really know,” Hilker said. They also have been able to survive with very little care. She has seen some decline over recent years because of the summer droughts.

'Rosa moschata' ... the Musk Rose ... an ancient rose that grows in Hollywood's Crenshaw plot.

“My real interest is preserving old roses and teaching people about them,” Hilker said. “Part of that for five years was propagating and selling the old roses. But most people don’t know about them. You can’t go to a store and get them. You really have to go to a specialty nursery or know someone.”

'Autumn Sunset' a rose that once grew on the Augustine lot.  It suffered and eventually died from prolonged drought.

(Click HERE to go to the original online version of this article.)

Pictures

You already know that I was at Hollywood Cemetery on Monday, finishing the assessment of the existing roses in preparation for our volunteer Rose Work Day on March 23.  While I was there, a photographer from the Richmond newspaper trailed along behind Donald and me while we worked.  I just found out that six of the photos were published on the online version of the paper. 

Here they are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This looks pretty darned glamorous, doesn't it?  We do lots of staring at the map, riding in the Gator, walking around, making notes, and doing the best we can to have enough information to prepare for putting the volunteers to work next Saturday.

 

Now I'm wondering if the interview that I did with the reporter is going to be published ... if it is, I will let you know.

 

photo credit goes to Daniel Sangjib Min of the Richmond Times Dispatch.