AMERICAN ROSE
Published by the American Rose Society
May 2006
Excerpted here is Chapter R in honor of Miriam Wilkins and The Celebration of Old Roses.
The Celebration
I FONDLY REMEMBER the day I purchased this special rose. My journal entry for Sunday, May 21, 1989, describes a heady event:
Today I treated myself to the Celebration of Old Roses. To my surprise, the annual event and the cottage our family lived in twenty-eight years ago are on the same street in El Cerrito--Ashbury Street--the site of our first rose garden.
A carnival atmosphere swung me into a throng of Old Rose lovers. Plant vendors lined both sides of the walkway outside the entrance. The delectable roses and perennials tempted me to stop, but I had to see what was going on inside.
At the entryway, stood a tall basket that looked like a wicker wedding cake. Packed close together on three tiers were numerous and varied Old Roses in their well-known pinks, mauves, and deep violets.
Walking past raffle tables displaying tempting prizes of superb rosebushes, I tried to contain myself as I entered a scented sea. A rectangle of long tables in the large room displayed a vast assembly of roses. Arranged by family, the roses were all carefully labeled in clear glass bottles. Even though I was by myself in the large crowd, I started laughing--overwhelming beauty had me laughing! I perused the roses intoxicated by fragrance and splendor. Taking reference notes was useless--I wanted every rose.
At the back of the room, artful arrangements of Old Roses waited to be judged. Additional vendors had display tables against the walls. You could purchase a dollop of rose jelly on a cracker, accompanied by a recipe for 10¢; a flower-shaped cookie with rose flavoring for 25¢; china hand-painted with roses; rose clothing; rose greeting cards. A tiny lady who must have been 90 years old, stood waving an astonishing sphere of pale peach petals, like a flag. It was a poppy. She offered to send seeds when the pods were ready. I signed my name and address on her seed list and gave her $1.25. When I was able to tear myself from the room, I walked by the plant vendors again. I purchased two roses I had been looking for, Belinda and Ballerina and what looked like a darling mini rose labeled Rouletii. I left the memorable event in great happiness.
I planted my three rose purchases in a bed that borders a 6 ft redwood fence my husband had recently built. The rose called ROULETII went into the ground next to the opening to the back garden. To my surprise the little mini took off--she climbed the fence! We had to construct a gateway arbor for her. The rose's pale green, 12 ft canes soon swathed the structure in a tracery of tiny leaves making an impressive entrance. I like to think that my gardener's intuition planted the rose in such a perfect spot. As a gardener, I've made many planting mistakes; I'm thrilled when nature takes charge and paints her own picture.
As a writer I might have made another mistake if Graham Thomas hadn't looked at my R and said, "That is not ROULETII."
My heart sank as he said, "That's POMPON DE PARIS, it used to grow in my rock garden. This is going to upset your alphabet isn't it?" Actually, the puzzlement has made my alphabet more interesting.
I tried to solve the identification problem. I have grown a mini rose labeled POMPON DE PARIS whose flowers look nothing like those on my climber. And, a picture that is captioned as ROULETII in Rix and Phillip's book, Roses, looks nothing like the climber either. By chance, I borrowed a book from my friend Mary titled Gardening With Old Roses by John Scarman. On page 95, I saw my rose! Labeled POMPON DE PARIS, the photograph shows her familiar perky blooms trimming a building's roof. A picture isn't proof though. I went to a special rose nursery and was informed that rosarians equate the two roses! So, thankfully, I think it's safe to keep the name ROULETII associated with my rose and with the R in my alphabet.
EACH SPRING, the media devotes premium space to roses, and rose celebrations. Alluring magazine covers alert readers to feature stories extolling roses and rose gardens, and calendars list rose events all over America and Europe. California is especially fortunate to have many rose celebrations.
In 1975, Miriam Wilkins founded The Heritage Rose Group. She lives on a hill above the El Cerrito Community Center, overlooking the San Francisco Bay. The Celebration of Old Roses, held at the center the first weekend after Mother's Day, is the group's labor of love to introduce Old Roses to a wider public. The members focus on the preservation, history, re-introduction, and identification of these roses.
Miriam Wilkins' garden has been visited by about every well-known rosarian in the world. Can you imagine being in a jungle of rare and blissful roses? I've never seen anything like Miriam's garden. It flows 8000 square feet down a hill and into her neighbor's property. I walked through tunnels of soaring rose canes (Miriam doesn't prune her roses) that looped and braided themselves together to form what looked like a fairy-castle. Mesmerized, the question, "What's the name of this rose?" was on the tip of my tongue at every turn. At one point, I was almost buried in a cascade of pale pink singles; a few more paces down the path, I stared into the face of a white rose that took my breath away. It seems like Miriam grows every rose in existence.
The journal entry, at the beginning of the chapter, traced my early learning about rose-gardening to our cottage on Ashbury Street, very near Miriam's home and only two blocks away from the El Cerrito Center. I knew nothing about Miriam and her Celebration of Old Roses at that time, but in retrospect I believe their proximity had a magical influence on my rose future.
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