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.

***********************************
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.)

Read All About It!

When we bought this old house of ours nine years ago, it attracted lots of local attention.  Everyone who has any connection to this section of the county knows our house.  During our renovation, we were practically taking the place apart and putting it back together, and our very visible location on our road meant that everyone who passed by could keep an eye on our progress.   

I was standing in the street when I took this photo in the winter of 2004.

It wasn't long till a reporter from the local newspaper came calling.  Over the past few years, we have had a number of articles written about our place:  one when we were in the thick of our restoration, HERE,

This is the first photo I ever took of our soon-to-be house, as I stepped out of the car during our first real estate showing.

Two articles about the restoration of our barn, HERE and HERE,

The blog post where I detail the whole start-to-finish story about the barn is HERE.

One article about the history of our house when it was placed on the National Register, HERE. 

The most recent article was one about my rose business that was published last April, HERE. 

These articles were not the first time that I have had an article about me in the newspaper.  In 1996, an innocent conversation with a newspaper reporter (who was a friend of a friend), led to an interview and an article that depicted my seasonal habit of rustling plants from old home sites that were scheduled to be demolished.

This is a rose I call "Tidewater Trail", a particularly nice hybrid china that I rustled as a cutting from a struggling rose at an abandoned house site.

My copy of this article was lost long ago, and 1996 predates the newspaper's own digital articles.  Through the miracle of Google, I recently found a digital copy of this article in their newspaper archives.  It was fun to read it again after all these years.  Since I enjoyed it so much, and it was such a window into my personality at the time, I thought you might like to read it, too.  HERE

Read All About It!

A writer and a photographer from the local newspaper visited here last week.  They wanted to do a story about me and my nursery, to help shake the winter doldrums off of their readers.  I'm not shy, so I gladly agreed.  The story is in today's Free Lance-Star.

The three of us walked the gardens, which are still looking pretty awful after this winter, and we chatted for over an hour ... discussing things like how I decided to start the nursery, why I chose roses, and (my most dreaded question) which roses are my favorites.  I even let the photographer take my picture, though I was dressed in work clothes and my hair was pulled back in a really unflattering ponytail.  (Two friends have already told me that it doesn't really look like me.)

Since there are no roses blooming in the garden now, the photographer asked if he could fill in the story with some of MY photos.  He browsed the blog, choosing photos that he liked, and I sent him high-resolution files without my watermark.  It's so cool to have a mosaic of my photos published like this!

clockwise:  Mutabilis, Leontine Gervais, Mr. Lincoln, Leontine Gervais wide shot.

I was very pleased to see that the writer accurately captured my motivation behind building my gardens and starting this nursery.  I want to show people that it doesn't take superhuman effort to have a rose garden you love and are proud of.  There ARE roses that require more work than others ... and you don't have to grow these unless you choose to.

The newspaper article on their web site is HERE.  I have also reprinted it below, so you don't have to click back and forth.

******************************

Her Business is Blooming

Stafford woman building her heirloom rose nursery business

Date published: 4/15/2011

BY RICHARD AMRHINE

It's a busy time of year at Hartwood Roses, but the pruning, propagating, potting and planting going on now will pay off in the coming months. The grounds of the property will explode with the colorful blooms of hundreds of heirloom and historic varieties of roses, while many others will find homes in gardens near and far.

Connie Hilker has run this one-woman operation at 335 Hartwood Road, with some help from her husband, Steve, for three years now. They bought the property known as Hartwood Manor, a rare Southern example of Gothic Revival architecture, in 2002, and promptly took on a five-year renovation of the house.

"The rose garden was always part of the plan," she said. "How could you not with all this space and sun?"

She said this area's weather is perfect for roses, and the property is right next door to Hartwood Winery.

"Grapes and roses like the same conditions of weather and water," she said, and they can suffer from the same diseases, such as the dreaded black spot.

In fact, vintners often place rosebushes at the end of rows in the vineyard because the roses will indicate ahead of time if there could be an issue with the grapes. "Sort of like the canary in the coal mine," she said. "Roses blend with any plant that likes the same conditions, and they'll need at least six hours of good light during the growing season."

Hilker said areas with clay soil like ours often need infusions of organic materials such as compost for best rose-garden results.

She pointed to a tiny bush she planted in the fall, confident that it would survive the winter.

"There's an old adage that you only plant roses in the spring," she said. "But you can plant in the fall, or any time of year, and they'll do fine."

An exception would be bare-root roses.


BLOG AND WEBSITE

Hilker provides a wealth of information through her website and blog. Pay a visit to hartwoodroses.com, whether you're looking to learn or shop. She also offers presentations for novices and veterans on rose gardening and propagating.

In her garden, Hilker has 600 plants of many varieties, with 200 more ready to go into the ground.

For people who are looking for an easy rose to care for that will look pretty in a landscape, the Knockout varieties found in area home-improvement stores are good choices. They might even turn you into a rose lover in search of more interesting varieties.

"Heirloom roses are the kinds that your grandmother and great-grandmother grew," she said.

These "old garden roses" date to between 1867 and 1949, the ones that have large, voluptuous blooms and thinner, less rigid stems. There are many other classic and unique varieties that have come along since then that are referred to as "florist roses," with straight stems and tighter blooms, the sort that are delivered by the millions to sweethearts on Valentine's Day.

"There have been changes in fashion in roses over time like there is with everything else," she said.


HILKER'S FAVORITES

Asking Hilker to name a favorite rose is like asking a parent to name a favorite child. Pressed on the issue, she comes up with a few:

Mutabilis is a simple, five-petal, single-layer rose. A variety of China rose, it is among the garden's first bloomers, and the bush can grow to "about the size of a Volkswagen Bug." It is a "changeable" variety, in that it initially blooms white, then turns a peach color, then pink and deep pink.

Peggy Martin is a thornless variety, something many people like. It's also quite hardy, with plants found in New Orleans that survived Katrina despite having been underwater--in salt water.

The polyantha class of roses are low-maintenance varieties that grow relatively low to the ground and have clusters of beautiful blooms continuously throughout the season.

The gallica roses are known for their fragrance and many colors, including a deep purple.

The list goes on and on, of course, with varieties that do whatever gardeners want them to do. There are climbers--repeat bloomers that are great for a wall or trellis--and ramblers, usually single-bloomers that are ideal for running horizontally along a fence. Plus there are many kinds of tea roses, known for their array of colors and fragrances, and their "definition of rose" blooms.


NEW GARDENS

Still in the throes of designing new rose gardens, Hilker is planning areas with particular themes. One will be called the Cemetery Garden, with the many varieties she has found in cemeteries.

"Cemeteries are a great place to find heirloom roses because they were planted long ago," she said.

Another garden will feature famed David Austin roses from Great Britain, and there will be cottage rose varieties in another.

She designs the gardens on paper, then lays down plastic that will become the pathways. Landscape timbers define the beds and walkways and help block weeds. The pathway plastic is then covered with gravel.

Hilker knows that the rose garden will eventually stop expanding. What won't stop expanding is her love for roses of every sort.

*************************

For The Love of Roses
Connie Hilker has always loved roses, a pursuit encouraged by her grandmother, who tended a year-round rose garden in Southern California. She tells the story in her blog, hartwoodroses.blogspot.com. 

"My grandmother grew roses. She grew Hybrid Tea roses with Hall of Fame names 'Peace,' 'Mr. Lincoln,' and 'Mirandy' were some of her favorites that come to mind. Her southern California garden was an ideal place to grow these roses to perfection. When I was a newlywed in our first house in the early 1980s, I wanted to grow roses my grandmother's kind of roses."

Hilker recalled her mixed success in growing roses at every home she and her husband have shared since then. It wasn't until they settled into their house in Hartwood that she had the perfect combination of time, sun and fertile soil to get serious about growing roses, and then to get really serious about opening Hartwood Roses, her heirloom and old-garden rose nursery.

The key piece of sage advice given her by a Master Gardener was all the encouragement she needed: "If you think you can't grow roses, you are probably trying to grow the wrong ones."

Through the Eyes of Others

I had a visit from a fellow Fredericksburg blogger on Friday afternoon.  Kathie Abercrombie (a local realtor and a very nice person) discovered my roses online and wanted to feature them on her blog.

 

This is "Old Gray Cemetery Noisette".  It has nothing at all to do with the subject of this post, but I couldn't possibly put something here without also posting pretty pictures.

 Kathie spent about an hour and a half here, and we walked the gardens and chatted the whole time.  She asked questions about the roses and the property, and I answered her the best I could. 

Duchesse de Brabant in Hollywood Cemetery.

The article that Kathie wrote about my roses and nursery is WONDERFUL!!  I am always amazed at the way a real writer can take a rambling conversation and turn it into a cohesive article.  Reading it made me blush.

"Frommer Plot Rose", also in Hollywood Cemetery.

Thank you, Kathie!!  I look forward to visiting with you again.

In case you didn't see it linked twice in the text of this post, CLICK HERE to read Kathie's article.

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog.)

Hartwood Roses in the Newspaper … Again.

I spent last Monday in the garden with the managing editor of the Culpeper Times. She heard me speak at the Culpeper Garden Club’s meeting in July, and she thought the garden here would be a interesting subject for an article.

Here is the article.  I think she did a really nice job of capturing the atmosphere I try to create around here.  Come visit, and see for yourself.

'A Rose is a Rose is a Rose'


By Anita L. Sherman
Source: Culpeper Times
FRIDAY, AUGUST 21 2009

It's a hot muggy morning and Connie Hilker has a lot of tending to do — there are roses to water, roses to plant, roses to move and rose beds that need weeding. "It's rare that I'm not covered in dirt," said Hilker, who currently has some 800 roses that she lovingly tends.

Visiting Hartwood Roses, like one of her favorites Double Delight, is a two-fold pleasure. A stately brick home, Hartwood Manor, takes center stage on the nine acres. It was built in 1848 in a Gothic-Revival style. Connie, along with her husband Steve, purchased the place in 2002 and has since been renovating it. Surrounding by aging oaks and a majestic pecan tree, Hilker's nursery, which opened in June, is perfectly nestled in history.

Hilker has not only found a home that is the perfect niche, but also a business and passion well suited to this place out of time — raising heirloom old garden roses.

"I can't compete with the large commercial growers," said Hilker. But that's fine with her, as her specialty is the hard-to-find, less-common varieties of roses — perhaps those that bloomed in your mother's or grandmother's garden.

Hilker's collection includes some she has rescued from cemeteries or a bulldozer's path. Pointing to one diminutive bush, Hilker said sadly that the mother plant was gone.

A longtime rose aficionado, Hilker's interest in starting her own nursery gained momentum when a grower in Waynesboro retired. "He was a real super guy, and I wanted to carry on what he had started," said Hilker who has acquired many of her roses from nurseries that have gone out of business.

Hilker's main garden is on what was once a large vegetable garden. Looking out on her row upon row of roses, Hilker said that the first row represents her favorites – China Roses. "The soil here is really, really good," said Hilker, "and it drains very well."

With many ancient European varieties, a stroll through Hilker's gardens is a walk through time, with small tags resonating from 1857 and the Duchesse de Brabant or Daphne from 1912. Then there's the stately General Washington, circa 1860, and delicate Evangeline from 1906.

Specializing in ramblers and climbers, Hilker's roses are all grown on their own roots and propagated on her property. A greenhouse nurses tiny cuttings that are taking root and are gently misted in a recycling water system.

Hilker recently gave a presentation at the Culpeper Garden Club. She has strong ties to Culpeper as her parents live on Lake Pellum, and she has a sister in Stevensburg. A member of the Richmond Rose Society, Hilker is keen on educating people about her heirloom beauties.

If you're not able to come in person, Hilker now offers her selection of vintage roses online.

Open officially each Saturday from 10 - 3 p.m., Hilker spends most of her time looking after her roses. "I'm also open by appointment but, you know, chances are most days I'm here and you can find me in the garden."

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Rose blog)