We drove to Santa Barbara for the rose society meeting, to hear Tom Carruth speak on the progress of changes to the Huntington Botanical Garden's rose garden.

Didn't want to go without taking roses -- so as the rain tapered off, we went out to pick what we could find. Given the weather, a lot of our usual stalwarts had only fried bloom, but we managed to find these two bouquets, along with individual sprays of 'Fourth of July' (one of Tom's best, we think) and 'Bishop Darlington.'

Jeri

Ingrid

Later in the evening, I stuck my small Bishop Darlington spray in there, and it looked companionable with the rest. That bouquet lasted until last night. The Prospero and Sombreuil bouquet is still hanging in, tho this is, clearly, its final day.

Jeri

A great deal of deferred maintenance is under way. (Did you know that they actually had trellising that was installed in Henry Huntington's lifetime??? Some of that has been preserved and re-used.)

Tom began months ago by cataloging all of the roses in the garden. That wasn't all that easy, because there were no few things that were mislabeled or not labeled. They've got by that stage now, for the most part, tho Gregg Lowery is going to come down to look at some of the things none of us could figure out from photos.

That sort of thing should continue to improve, with more volunteers, and some actual MONEY available, now, for maintenance issues.

All of those long arbors are going to be replaced, and some pathways have been made safer to walk on. The garden still includes some rather rare HTs from the first half of the 20th Century, which are mostly out of commerce. Material was sent to Burling Leong, so that new plants can be budded. (Surplus copies of some of those will eventually be sold.)

The badly compressed soil in the Tea Rose area is being addressed, and the Teas are growing like mad (great news!). I look forward to seeing the work in progress next spring.

I think, tho, that I'll trek out there in February, just to see how it's going. When we're there, you know, for Great Rosarians (Malcolm's speaking!). I haven't walked out to that garden for several years, and now, I look forward to it.

Jeri

Wonderful things appear to be in the works! Puts a big smile on my face. Yay!!!!

Jeri

I remember when I went just after Pasadena had that awful wind that knocked over trees at the LA Arboretum, Descanso and the Huntington. Big piles of tree branches in front of all the houses on the streets around the Huntington that practically closed the strrets down to one lane. The Huntington suffered awful damage to the arbors, trellises and many big trees were ripped up or blown down. One of my favorite old Oaks on the lawn opposite the new glass house was killed in that storm.

I'm glad they are working on the rose area now after making that amazing Chinese garden and renovating the Japanese garden. I want them to give the Perennial area next door over to Mr. C and the roses because it would look good with teas and modern shrubs mixed in and the whole perennial garden is ho-hum now any way. The roses could grow large and natural in that garden and look amazing with the other plantings. It could be a fabulous English look. Huntington folks are you listening? This could be a great garden too if you let the roses in.

Jeri