Wine and Roses Open House at Tufton Farm

This Saturday, May 19, the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants, at Tufton Farm in Charlottesville, Virginia, will hold its annual Wine and Roses Open House.  I was there for most of the day yesterday, consulting with staff, evaluating the roses in the garden, and helping to prepare for this weekend's event.  

Most of my time was spent organizing the roses in the nursery sales area.  There is a great selection of roses, most of which are rarely available except for via mail order.  

The roses available for sale are:

'Amanda Patenotte' (aka, "Portland from Glendora")
'Aviateur Bleriot'
'Baltimore Belle'
'Blush Noisette'

'Blush Noisette'

"Bremo Musk"

'Cecile Brunner'

'Climbing Cecile Brunner'

'Champneys' Pink Cluster'

'Complicata'

'Crepuscule'

'The Fairy'

'The Fairy'

'Felicite et Perpetue'

'Fewell's Noisette'

'Gardenia'

Gardenia

'Gruss an Aachen'
'Ispahan'

'Ispahan'

Lady Banks, White

Lady Banks, Yellow

'Madame Plantier'

'Marie Daly'

'Marie Pavie'

'Marie Pavie'

'Mary Washington'

Single Musk (R. moschata)

'Mutabilis'

'Mutabilis'

'New Dawn'

'Old Blush'

'Climbing Old Blush'

"Peggy Martin"

'Pompon de Bourgogne'

'Old Blush'

'Climbing Old Blush'

"Peggy Martin"

'Pompon de Bourgogne'

Prairie Rose (R. setigera)

'Pride of Washington'

'Pride of Washington'

'Princesse de Nassau'

'Redoute's Red'

'Redoute's Red'

'Rosa palustris' (Swamp Rose)

'Rose d'Amour'

'Sombrueil'

'Temple Musk'

'Tuscany'

'Veilchenblau'

'Tuscany'

Here is the event flyer, with the schedule of activities.  This year's rose speaker is my friend Peggy Cornett, Curator of Plants at Monticello.

I can't be at the event this year and I'm seriously bummed about it.  

Heritage Rose Foundation Conference, Next Month

One month from today, rose lovers from all over the US (and at least a couple of foreign countries) will spend three rose-filled days in Fredericksburg, Virginia, for the 2017 Heritage Rose Foundation Conference.  

It's not too late for you to plan to join us.  Let me show you what we are going to do.

The conference will begin on Thursday, May 18, with an optional pre-conference bus trip to Charlottesville to visit the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants at Tufton Farm, home of the Leonie Bell Noisette Garden, and to tour the gardens and mansion at Monticello, home of President Thomas Jefferson.  Lunch is included.

"Bremo Musk" in the Leonie Bell Noisette Garden.

Friday, May 19, we will enjoy a day of presentations at Belmont, Gari Melchers' home and studio in Falmouth, Virginia.  Continental breakfast, buffet lunch, and tours of the mansion and garden are included.

'Tausendschoen' in the garden at Belmont.

I am very excited to have put together this slate of speakers:

Benjamin Whitacre, who paired a fascination with ancient texts and roses as a college student in Williamsburg, Virginia, before spending a year at the Arnold Arboretum researching Harvard's historic rose experiments.  He has also worked with roses at Mount Auburn Cemetery, the American Horticultural Society, and at Monticello.

Beate Ankjaer-Jensen, who has served as Cultural Resource Manager at Gari Melchers Home and Studio since 1999.  She led the research and restoration of the gardens and historic buildings, and directed the creation of native grassland meadows and trails that interpret the cultural and natural recources on the 29-acre estate.

Scott Dean, who became interested in roses at age 5, when his father entered a rose in his name in the youth class in a rose show.  He combines his hobby of studying the Middle Ages, as a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, with his interest in roses, researching the rose varieties grown in Europe prior to the year 1600.

Mike Shoup, who opened the Antique Rose Emporium in 1984, with the goal of creating a resurgence in the preservation of rare and beautiful roses.  Specializing in the re-introduction and distribution of historic roses, the retail center has theme gardens that show the versitility of antique roses in garden settings.  Mike is a past president of the Heritage Rose Foundation, and the author of three books and numerous national articles on the subject of using Old Garden Roses in today's gardens.

Saturday, May 20, we begin with a bus tour to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond to learn about the history of this 19th Century garden cemetery and its roses.  Goth Gardener and I are writing a new tour especially for this event.  As part of the day's activities, we will be replanting three lost roses to their original locations!  Lunch is included.

One of the roses that we will replant is 'Safrano' on the Waller lot in Section Q near Presidents Circle.

Saturday evening is the part of the conference that I'm most excited about ... a buffet barbecue dinner under a big tent in my garden here at Hartwood Manor!  My roses should be in full bloom for the guests, and I have been working SO hard to make everything look its best.  Roses will be available for sale.  A Heritage Rose Foundation banquet would be incomplete without the star attraction of the evening, Stephen Scanniello, president of HRF, acting as auctioneer for a wonderful assortment of rare roses and rose items ... including an oil painting donated by my very talented artist husband.

'Shailer's Provence' in the Fence Border, at Hartwood Manor ... home sweet home.

Registration fee is $210.  This all includes activities on Friday and Saturday, including lectures, tours, and meals, as noted.  An additional $85 fee is required for Thursday's optional tour to Charlottesville.  We also offer registration for individual activities, for folks who have scheduling conflicts and cannot attend the entire conference. (If you can only come to one thing, the banquet is the one that I recommend.  It's going to be so much FUN!!)

Edited to say:  Registration is closed, because this event is now history .. and it was FABULOUS.  You should have been here!)

I am coordinating this event with a little bit of help, but not much, and it has required an ever-increasing amount of my time and thought processes.  Folks who are coming have told me that they are very excited to come see the world of roses that we have here in Virginia ... and I am over-the-moon delighted to be their hostess.

Baby Roses in the Basement

One corner of my basement workshop is set up as a place to nurture my fall rose cuttings and to hold over any resulting plants till it's safe for them to live outside in the spring.  It feels wonderful to work with green, growing things in winter, while the world outside is brown and dormant.  It's the main way that this gardener survives the downtime of winter.

My light set-up is simple ... a chrome-plated shelf rack from Costco, and each shelf is fitted with a cheap four-foot two-bulb fluorescent light fixture.  One bulb is cool spectrum, one bulb is warm spectrum.  This is not as efficient as the expensive grow lights, but it does the job that I need.

This year's crop of roses is very special to me.  They are some of the rare ones from my garden, along with plants from the collection at Monticello's Tufton Farm.  A few of these babies are destined to be traded with rose friends.  Most of them will be sent to rose nurseries, for use as stock plants ... with the goal of making them available in commerce in the future.  This is the best way I know to preserve these roses, and to do what I can to insure their continued survival.

In addition to the roses, I also have some baby fig plants.  These came from cuttings that I took last October at an abandoned service station in Louisa County, Virginia.  (I love figs almost as much as I love roses.)

There's a Magnolia seedling in there, too, that I found growing underneath one of my roses last fall.

In the next week or so, I will package up the Florida-bound plants and ship them to their new home at Rose Petals Nursery.  The rest of them will stay safely in the basement till the end of March.  That's when I plan to transplant them into six-inch pots and begin to transition them to their life outdoors in the garden.

"Preserving history one rose at a time" 

(This is the motto at Rose Petals, and it perfectly expresses exactly how I feel about what I do!)

Click HERE to go to my propagation photo tutorial.  It's really, really easy!

Remembering Doug

Reverend Douglas Seidel passed away three days ago, early on Saturday morning, October 3.  He leaves behind an army of friends and family ... and I am proud to count myself among his friends.

This is the only photo I can find of Doug and me.  It was taken in Lynchburg, in 2011.  That's Doug in the center of the back row.

I remember when I first heard about Doug.  I was reading In Search of Lost Roses by Thomas Christopher, not long after I discovered the wonders of old, unknown roses, some time in the early 2000s.  The author described how Doug, as a teen, partnered with Leonie Bell (who is not mentioned by name) to travel the Pennsylvania countryside to document and collect roses at abandoned sites and in cemeteries ... does this sound like someone else you know?

Photo of Doug with "Hollywood Pink Cluster" in 2001.

Photo by Peggy Cornett.

"Hollywood Pink Cluster"

I remember the first time that I saw Doug in person.  He was the banquet speaker at a district meeting of the ARS's Colonial District in Staunton, Virginia.  Doug's program was mesmerizing, and I remember sitting there in awe of the history of our repeat-flowering roses and their origins in the ever-blooming roses imported from China in the late 18th century.  I don't think that most of the audience that evening fully appreciated who he was or what he had to say.  

I did not approach Doug that evening, as I tend to get a bit tongue-tied when I'm around people that I admire.  I used to rationalize that it was best to remember a pleasant evening, rather than regret having said something completely stupid.  (I'm not so much like this anymore, thank goodness.)

A group of rose lovers, including Doug, Dennis Whetzel, and Peggy Cornett, in front of the "Crenshaw Musk Rose" at Hollywood Cemetery in 2001.

Photo by Kent Krugh.

"Crenshaw Musk Rose"

I remember when I first spoke to Doug.  It was the morning after that program in Staunton.  I was on the hotel elevator ... the elevator stopped at a lower floor, the door opened, and there was Doug.  I had been mentally kicking myself for passing on the chance to meet him in person the night before, and I was not going to let this new opportunity slip by.  I introduced myself, told him how much I loved his program, and we then spent the next two hours in the hotel lobby talking and getting acquainted.  I still get goosebumps when I think about it.

Doug and I exchanged contact information as we parted that day, and we promised to keep in touch.  He stubbornly refused to use computers, relying mostly on hand-written notes and phone calls.  I always had a notebook nearby and a pen in hand whenever I spoke to him, whether in person or on the phone, because I never knew what our conversations would be.  What to him may have been a tired story or insignificant fact, could be a valuable clue to to some mystery that I may have been thinking about.  I wanted to make certain that I remembered it all.

Doug with "Red Smith's Parish" at Presidents Circle, Hollywood Cemetery.

Photo by Kent Krugh.

"Red Smith's Parish"

Through my friendship with Doug, I have met many more like-minded rose people.  It is through him that I got to know the people at Monticello's Tufton Farm.  Doug was the force behind the Leonie Bell Noisette Garden, where I have been working for the past few years to help preserve the roses there.  Some of the plants in the Bell Garden were Doug's own, donated as a tribute to Mrs. Bell (he always called her Mrs. Bell), his mentor who nurtured that curious young man and helped him awaken a lifetime love of old roses.

Doug with 'Alba Odorata Bracteata' in Hollywood Cemetery, 2001.

Photo by Kent Krugh.

'Alba Odorata Bracteata'

I remember when Doug told me that he had been diagnosed with cancer ... an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had already spread to his bones.  He and I kept in touch regularly during that time, as I was a link to Tufton and to Hollywood Cemetery, and he listened intently as I told him of my work in both of those places.  He told me over and over of his experiences there and other places ... and I took notes.  

Doug had hoped to see the Bell Garden again, but he never did.  He took comfort in the fact that the rare roses planted there are safe, having been propagated and shared with individuals and nurseries.  (I still have a few roses there to propagate, which I hope to do in the next couple of weeks.)

Doug and the group with "Oak Avenue Tea" at Hollywood Cemetery in 2001, which he identified as 'William R. Smith'.

Photo by Kent Krugh.

"Oak Avenue Tea" ... aka, 'William R. Smith'

I remember one of the last times I talked to Doug.  It was in June of this year, after I sent him a surprise package full of roses and photos.  (He had been scheduled to speak at the rose festival at the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, but he had to cancel because of his health.  I was going to bring roses to him, unknown roses from my garden and from Hollywood Cemetery, for him to identify.)  He said that he was so excited to open that box ... full of old friends, as he called them.  One of the things he told me is that my "Tidewater Trail" is a rose that he has found in many places throughout his part of Pennsylvania.

Doug and Dennis Whetzel, identifying roses during the Open House at Tufton Farm, 2011.

I will remember Doug as a friend, a mentor, and a confidante ... someone from whom I learned so much, who awakened and nurtured my own love of roses and of discovery.  I will be with Doug's friends and family as we will gather this weekend, to remember him and to say goodbye.

I will ALWAYS remember Doug ... with my memories and notes, through continuing friendships, and with some of his roses that live in my garden ... and I will always think of him and smile.

Friday Flowers: Open Garden on Sunday and Roses for Sale.

This whole week has been chilly and gray and rainy ... okay for helping the roses in the garden hold their remaining flowers (instead of frying in the heat, if we had heat) ... not so great for this gardener who had grand plans for sprucing up the place in preparation for visitors on Open Garden Day on Sunday.  Oh, well, the roses look better than they probably ever have even without any additional tidying.

One job that I couldn't put off was organizing my pot ghetto to separate the roses that I'm keeping from the roses that I plan to sell.  I wanted to do this well ahead of time, so I could compile an inventory list and gather photos for this post and for FB.  Most of these are extra plants from my propagation over the last year or two.  A few of them are roses that I was going to keep but have decided to part with instead.

Highlighted links below each photo take you to the rose's listing on Help Me Find, the best rose reference resource on the 'Net.

From Hollywood Cemetery:

"Hollywood Brandt Indica Major"

Once blooming, fragrant, and disease resistant.  Collected from a plant that grows on the Brandt lot in Hollywood Cemetery.

"Hollywood Alba Odorata"

Vigorous, repeat-blooming rose that thrives in hot weather.

Sold out.

"Hollywood Currie Multiflora"

Lanky, sprawling rose that grows on a cast iron fence on the Currie lot in Hollywood Cemetery.  May be a very nice example of 'Tausendschoen'.

"Hollywood Haxall Russeliana"

Large Hybrid China/Multiflora rose that grows on the Haxall lot in Hollywood Cemetery.  Recently identified as 'Russeliana'

Roses from other cemeteries:

'Banshee'

Very large, spring-blooming rose, that will spread moderately via suckers ... which is how I got mine.  Very cold hardy.  (this rose is too large to ship)

"Cemetery Musk Seedling"

Chance seedling found in the Sacramento City Cemetery rose garden.  Large shrub, repeat-blooming, and fragrant.

"Thornrose Pink Grootendorst"

Hybrid rugosa.  Repeat-blooming.  Collected at Thornrose Cemetery in Staunton, Virginia.

From the collection at Tufton Farm:

"Cross Manor Blush Noisette"

Identical to 'Blush Noisette' in commerce.  Collected from the garden at Cross Manor in Maryland.

"Mount Vernon Purple Noisette"

Same as "Mrs. Woods Lavender-Pink Noisette"  

"Ruth's Tiny Polyantha"

Tight clusters of 3/4" flowers, start pink and fade to white, on a plant that is less than three feet tall in the garden at Tufton Farm.

"Ruth's Wavy Leaf Noisette"

The foliage is glossy and healthy, and it has a slight wave to each leaflet.  Tall and fragrant.  Reblooms.

Other assorted roses:

'Edith Clark'

This rose is among the first to bloom in my garden.  The color is the same as 'Louis Philippe' and many of the other red China roses.  Needs fungicide for blackspot prevention.  (This rose is too large to ship.)

'Excelsa'

Hybrid multiflora rambler with large clusters of cherry red flowers, spring blooming.  Collected in Hanover County, Virginia.

'Lucetta'

David Austin English rose.  Large, repeat-flowering, and fragrant.

'Nozomi'

Climbing miniature rose that looks best when allowed to drape.  Spring blooming, with healthy foliage.  (this rose is too large to ship)

'Pookah'

Large, graceful Polyantha with large clusters of pink flowers that fade to white and very healthy foliage.

(In addition to the ones shown, I also have "Dr. Peck's 12th Avenue Smoothie", a found Hybrid China rose from California.)

Roses will be available for pick up during Open Garden on Sunday, and I am happy to ship to folks who can't be here in person.  Roses are all $20 each and quantities are VERY limited.  (Some of these have already sold in response to my post on the Hartwood Roses Facebook page last night.)  Send a PM to connie@hartwoodroses.com or leave a comment here with questions or to place an order.  Include your ZIP code, please.  I will confirm your order, calculate postage and handling (to cover materials and such) and send you a PayPal invoice.  (For those who don't use PayPal, a good old-fashioned check in the mail is just as good.)  I cannot ship to CA, AZ, OR, and a couple of other western states that I don't remember off the top of my head.

I'm excited to see what this year's Open Garden brings.  Lots of people have told  me that they're coming, and this place could be a madhouse... just the way I like it!

(I will do what I can between now and next week to take photos of the garden and put together a virtual Open Garden post for those of you who can't be here in person.  A photographer friend is coming by today to shoot, and I always have a camera on hand, so you will want to check back in later to see what we come up with.)