Pamela Temple's Paradise
Pamela poses under one of the garden's many arches with DR. VAN FLEET and CL. GOLD BADGE.
By Carolyn Parker
ENGLISH AUTHOR MARY HAMPDEN in her 1925 book Rose Gardening writes, “For there are scarcely any limits to the effects one may create with roses, the scenes that can be wrought with them, the nooks made, the vistas arranged, the colors blended, the canopies woven, the ground carpeted, the beds planned, the borders invented, the landscape ups-and-downs presented, the perfections blended into a perfect whole!”
The gazebo atop Pamela's ceramic studio has a view of the garden and one of the many ridges rising above the morning mist.
Red Rose Ridge, Pamela Temple’s secluded hillside garden contains all the above and more. She and her husband Michael reside on 38 acres in Willits, California. Their property faces west and has an uninterrupted view of blue and misty ridges, stretching twenty miles to the Mendecino coast.
Pamela lives and dreams roses in an artful life that breathes their limitless possibilities. Within the boundary of a metal t-post and wire deer fence, Pamela has carved two acres of the hillside into a progression of pathways, steps, and retaining walls that she built herself, with stones from a nearby serpentine quarry. An orchard, as well as Oregon oaks, cypresses, a tricolor beech, birches, and dogwoods, lend architectural support to the many layers. A pergola, fifty-two feet long, adds linear dimension and perspective. Purchased garden arches create entryways. Pamela’s octagonal art studio, topped with a gazebo, rises above it all.
CLIMBING GOLD BADGE and ALBERTINE mingle together on one fanciful arch that leads to much more.
Plant more than a thousand roses on such an armature and the result is a paradise of beauty, mystery, romance, passion, and love. Here, the rose has carte blanche to beguile and enthrall. Roses intermingle in a sumptuous profusion falling above you, drifting below you, tickling your cheek, catching you and turning you around.
Mighty rose canes form rooftops, walls, windows doorways, and tunnels. Bloom colors blend and shock in irresistible harmony. Leaf masses, due to sheer size, texture, and varying shades, offer an atmosphere of peace and tranquility. The magnificent setting both weaves and exchanges views with the roses.
Within the rose walls, Pamela has created many garden sections. Among them are The Red Rose Circle, Beauty’s Garden, Avenue of the Giants, and Mommy’s Garden, a memorial to her mother. Sparkling lily ponds, pools, and fountains add refreshing sounds and reflections. Almost life-size statues of the goddesses Flora, Beauty, Venus, and Artemesia the Artist create an aura of seduction and enchantment. Pamela’s ceramics, from plaques with rose quotations to masks of garden spirits, stimulate thoughts and ideas. But let’s not get too serious. Tea-pots pour water into one pond, a fish spouts from another, seven-foot rusted metal flowers poke up through perennials, and hundreds of frogs–one is ceramic and wearing a dress, another is plastic and nestled in the hand of a fairy–add humor and whimsy.
Bountiful Teodora is one of Pamela's many gorgeous garden figures.
How did it all start? In 1995, Pamela and Michael married and began their adventure. The bride moved to the groom’s remarkable piece of real estate. One trailer with a narrow strip of flowers, a lush vegetable garden and orchard, three rosebushes (NEW DAY plus two CHRYSLER IMPERIALS), and a deer fence were in place. Pamela, no stranger to vegetable gardening, got right to work. She soon expanded the flowerbed and planted DOUBLE DELIGHT and CLIMBING CECILE BRUNNER.
Then one day in 1996, Pamela saw a tiny ad in the Ukiah Daily Journal for a Mother’s Day event and Antique Rose sale. Curious, she and Michael went to the sale. On an open lot, crowded with huge roses blooming in three-gallon pots, was The Mendocino Rose Company, with Gail Daly presiding.
The roses with their exquisite names thrilled them both, and the festive air, fragrant roses, and Gail’s enthusiasm entranced Pamela. They loaded their Subaru station wagon, soon to be dubbed “Rose Seeker,” with THE BISHOP, CHARLES DE MILLS, COMPLICATA, SOUVENIR DE LA MALMAISON, and Ramblers that would shortly begin covering the boundary fence.
Until that Mother’s Day, Pamela was content to live with a few pretty roses. Now she wanted them all. Her life changed. The beauty, history, and romance of old roses struck a deep chord and working with roses became a spiritual quest–her life’s work. Intuitively, the garden began to take shape.
Vintage Gardens
In 1997, after driving by Vintage Gardens several times, Pamela eventually realized it was a rose nursery. “Of course it was like walking into rose wonderland. Gregg Lowery remembers the first time he saw us there with a cart completely loaded with roses. He’d probably never seen such enthusiasm–Michael with his booming voice calling, ‘Pamela come and look at this!’ And me quieter, but equally ecstatic saying, ‘Oh! How beautiful.’ It was such a thrill to walk in and lose ourselves in the fabulous varieties and in the beauty of the rose.’”
Reading the Vintage Gardens catalogue together, Pamela and Michael found Gregg’s romantic and sometimes humorous descriptions far more exciting than glossy photos. They purchased, in depth, in all rose categories. WILLIAM LOBB and HENRI MARTIN are favorite Mosses; MME. ERNEST CALVAT and MME ISAAC PEREIRE are loved Bourbons. There are more than fifty huge Ramblers. And Pamela’s roses don’t have to be antiques. KNOCKOUT is as welcome as KONIGIN VON DANEMARK. A large collection of David Austin roses receives royal treatment. LORDLY OBERON, YELLOW BUTTON, and MARY WEBB are several that are lesser known.
Because Michael loves red roses, Pamela wanted to buy them all, but 850 names appeared when she searched on helpmefind.com. Michael told her, “You’ll never be able to take care of 850 roses.” Today, if you go to helpmefind and click on gardens, then search Red Rose Ridge, and click on the plants grown tab, you’ll find Pamela’s rose list–it tops 1,000. And she’s not finished. She updates the list regularly, and each entry is clickable for photos.
In 1999, the installation of an agricultural pond eighteen-feet deep made it possible to irrigate so many roses. Six weeks before the fall bloom, Pamela prunes lightly. Heavy pruning takes about four hours a day from Thanksgiving to February. The roses receive alfalfa pellets and compost in the spring. Before the rains end, Pamela tosses a slow release fertilizer called Nitroform. In the summer, the roses that are on a drip receive liquid fertilizer through an EZ-Grow system. After flushes of bloom, the rebloomers are fed with this by hand.
Pamela's green spirit vase displays RAUBRITTER, GERTRUDE JEKYLL, LA REINE, KATHRYN MORELEY, HERMOSA, LEANDER, M. ERNEST CALVAT, M. CAROLINE TESTOUT, LOUISE ODIER . . .
Pamela Rose Edison grew up in the Los Altos hills. In her mother’s garden, there were a couple of roses, geraniums, and succulents. Her mother even rooted things, but down the street was a real garden. It belonged to a lady named Georgina who spent many hours gardening each day
Georgina had a verandah, a birdfeeder, lovely fuchsias and rockroses, and a compost pile, in which garbage disappeared. Pamela followed her about and was given cuttings of things like rose campion. She would formally invite children in for cookies and fizzies. Georgina’s patience and these sweet memories had a big impact on Pamela. So did the Blaze roses thriving outside the window of her childhood home–she thought it was fabulous that the rose had a name. On walks with her older sisters, she’d be impressed that they knew the names of plants like manzanita, madrone, toyon, wormwood.
Now Pamela’s mind is a storehouse of exotic names, but she says, “The garden’s not just dirt and plants–it’s metaphorical–totally emotional. You know how your emotions are influenced in movies? That’s what I try to do. I garden first for myself–for my own love of beauty. Beauty is my mission. The gift is the mission to create beauty–people are changed by the possibilities.”
Her favorite time is peak bloom; she loves the color, abundance, voluptuousness. When asked, “What is your favorite rose?” Pamela answers, “I just love them all. Every rose has its day when it is perfect. On that day it is my favorite rose.” Each spring Pamela and Michael hold a garden party they call Rosalia, from the Roman celebration of Roses. Friends and visitors gather and savor the rare atmosphere at Red Rose Ridge.
Pamela has a respected and helpful presence at both helpmefind.com and gardenweb.com (on the heritage rose forum, she’s known as Mendocino Rose). An anonymous visitor to her pages on helpmefind wrote, “Red Rose Ridge is a glamorous fairyland that one would expect to see in a children's storybook. The fact that this garden is an actual place makes it all the more precious––a true national treasure.”
Pamela's ceramic plaque reads: "Roses are a gift of price sent to us from paradise. More devine our nature grows in the Eden of the rose."
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