Measuring Tree Girth

We visited these ancient olives at
Mission San Jose during the Olive Festival 2017.
I will need to compare
with those old ones
at the California Nursery Historical Park.
But I think this one is bigger by far.

Tree girth is measured at breast height. Also lets you give them a good hug!

I'd say this one is about 10 feet in circumference.

You can have your roses and eat them, too

Dandelions top a snack of Mr. Lincoln and a pink rose.

All roses are edible. But some are more tasty. And of course, only if they are grown organically. Grow your own roses so you know that they are safe to eat.

Rosalind Creasy suggests these roses in her book, the Edible Flower Garden:

• 'Cécile Brünner'
• 'Zéphirine Drouhin'
• 'Austrian Copper'
• 'Eglantine'
• 'Belinda' (candying)
• Rugosa alba
• Rosa gallica
• Rosa moschata
• Rosa centifolia
• Rosa damascena
• 'The Fairy'
• 'Carefree Delight'
• 'Jeanne Lajoie'
• 'Graham Thomas'
• 'Perfect Moment'
• "Tiffany'
• 'Mr. Lincoln' (the red one that Beta is smelling)
• 'Double Delight'
• 'Mirandy'
• 'Pink Flower Carpet'

For making rose tea in the rose garden, I like the Bourbon rose 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' and the Portland roses: 'Rose de Rescht' and 'Pickering Four Seasons'. 'Jacques Cartier'  (Damask Perpetual/Hybrid Perpetual/Portland) is nice, too.

Also check on an earlier article with other roses to use for rose extracts.

To make it easier here's the list from that page:

• The Best and Most Fragrant Roses for Making Rose Water and Potpourris suggests Damask rose, Centifolia rose, moss roses. 
• Suggested Damask roses: Leda, La Ville des Bruxelles, Jacques Cartier, Celsiana, Hebe’s Lip, and Madame Hardy. 
• Suggested Centifolia roses: Tour de Malakoff, Fantin Latour, and The Bishop. 
• Suggested Moss roses: Alfred de Dalmas (Mousseline),Chapeau de Napoleon, Henri Martin, William Lobb. 
• Other suggested roses: Madame Isaac Pereire (most fragrant?), Souvenir de la Malmaison, Comte de Chambord, Reine des Violettes

Shinn's Lamarque rose

"La Marque Rose, 
thirteen years old, 
budded on Cherokee stock, 
on the Shinn farm house at Niles California"
From Vick's Illustrated Magazine,
February 1891
So it was planted in 1878.

The Shinn house once had a very large rose bush climbing up its walls. No longer. A yellow rose clambers up the trellis.

Charles Howard Shinn wrote about "California Rose Cottages" in Vick's Illustrated Magazine in 1891. He used a photograph of the farm home in Niles where he grew up. The La Marque rose is approaching the size of a house-eating rose.

Charles says "Then when people ask still further, what roses to plant, I have told them to begin almost any where, but that a Lamarque was good to start with, for one could plant it on a hillside with a crowbar, and it would come out ahead."

The La Marque rose is listed in the Shinn's Nurseries catalog.

Teasing out the Peace Rose History and Weaving in the California Nursery Company

The Roeding family history says that the California Nursery Company was the official West Coast propagator of the Peace rose. Or were they one of several? What about Armstrong?

It is also said that George Roeding, Jr. arranged to have Peace roses delivered to some number of delegates for the United Nations meeting in San Francisco.

Yet there is never any mention of this in the official Peace rose history. Why?

What happened to our Peace Rose?

From the 1948 California Nursery Catalog

These colors? Did the Peace Rose ever have these colors? Was this a colorized photo by someone who didn't know the true colors?

The California Nursery Company was one of the propagators of the Peace Rose on the West Coast in the mid 1940's. This was the color shown in their catalog. But the Roedings remember a different color than the color sold today.

'Black Dragon' wisteria

My favorite wisteria at our local park was a mystery.

I asked the pruning community for a good wisteria book for identifying the wisteria in the park and was recommended Peter Valder's Wisterias, A Comprehensive Guide.

However, once I posted a photo, two people knew exactly what it was: 'Black Dragon'!

It is the only double flowered wisteria, from what I understand, so there is no need to key it out.

Some interesting connections with the park is that W.B. Clarke was the west coast distributor of this Japanese wisteria. W.B. Clarke was, apparently, an employee of the California Nursery who opened his own nursery in San Jose. The CNCo sold W.B. Clarke's low-chill lilacs, so the Dragon might be in the CNCo catalog as well. I will check.

Rose Garden Before Time

The "Lost Rose Garden"

Our local historic nursery park has a hidden neglected rose garden with about twenty rose bushes.

We recently found out that this garden was an old AARS rose test garden, suspended in time from the 1970's when the nursery went out of business.

The neighbor, Bill, who lived behind the garden watered the roses for 48 years. He moved in 2017 and could no longer take care of it. We scrambled and with the help of volunteers and neighbors, the garden was watered that summer. Then we decided that no one would be able to continue this, so in 2017-2018 we moved the roses up to the front of the park in a temporary location, our "Rose Hospital".

What roses are in this garden? There are no labels. What was the AARS rose selection program? Do we have roses that are now lost to the nursery trade? How do we find out?

Some of the roses are quite pretty and have a wonderful fragrance.