(2011)  
 
David Ruston. The ninth conference was held at Charleston in the United States in October 200192. My hostess was Ruth Knopf, one of the world experts on Teas, Noisettes and China roses. I was most impressed with the use of Noisette roses in the gardens of the lovely old homes in the centre of the city still unspoilt by modern development. There were also great Noisette collections at Hampton Park and Boone Hall.

(2011)  Page(s) 112.  
 
From Paris we drove through glorious country to Brussels, diverting down country lanes in Belgium to visit the garden of a former World President of the World Federation of Rose Societies, Baronne Lily de Gerlache de Gomery, where we were given a delightful lunch. The garden was approaching its peak with hard pruned bushes producing excellent quality flowers. It was strange to look down at blooms of ‘Charles Mallerin’ at knee height rather than using a step ladder at home.

(2011)  Page(s) 123.  
 
A day at the Huntington Botanic Gardens was a day to remember….I had grown the large pink polyantha ‘Excellenz von Schubert’ for years without knowing what it was. I identified it at The Huntington and this gave me great pleasure. This rose is often confused with ‘Gartendirektor Otto Linne’ which is very similar.

(2011)  
 
Castlemaine 1991 Conference.  Tommy Garnett, the great old gardener and writer who developed the garden from St Erth at Blackwood in Victoria, dealt with the life of Alister Clark and his garden at Glenara.
 

(2011)  Page(s) 123.  
 
A day at the Huntington Botanic Gardens was a day to remember….I had grown the large pink polyantha ‘Excellenz von Schubert’ for years without knowing what it was. I identified it at The Huntington and this gave me great pleasure. This rose is often confused with ‘Gartendirektor Otto Linne’ which is very similar.

(2011)  Page(s) 61.  Includes photo(s).
 
My two spelter ewers hold ornamental pear branches laden with brown berries, coupled with pink and cream 'American Heritage' roses along with 'Helena', the soft apricot sport of 'Helen Traubel' in the lower ewer. 

(2011)  Page(s) 208.  Includes photo(s).
 
[Photo of arrangement with some ‘Mabella’ paling at the edges.]

(2011)  Page(s) 101.  
 
In November 2008 Victoria hosted the ninth Australian Heritage Rose Conference, entitled 'Keeping History Alive'. This was held in the beautiful late Victorian mansion Morning Star, at Mornington, a lovely seaside town south-east of Melbourne. Judy Barrett, the owner of Morning Star, has planted a rose garden of magnificent proportions with 30,000 bushes, many of them laden with blooms when I was there.

(2011)  Page(s) 34.  
 
Van Huysum used the large terracotta vase, enlivened by friezes of putti for the first time. He loved bold colours namely orange, reds and yellow softened by pale peonies, in the centre and R. centifolia cascading downwards in a most natural way, opium poppies with their swirling grey foliage and striking form, with a feature of auriculas of many colours with contrasting eyes adding to the effect.....

There has been a lot of controversy about the yellow centifolia rose now called R. huysumiana, painted first by Van Huysum and then later by artists Jan Van Os and Georgius Van Os. In a letter to a friend, Van Huysum says that he had to wait for a whole year to paint this yellow centifolia as no blooms were available. It must have been extremely rare, and a poor grower, as it disappeared fifty years after its introduction. Perhaps it was a chance cross with R. foetida persiana or R. hemisphaerica. We will never know, but I would like to give Van Huysum the credit for such an important discovery. It is interesting to see that quite a few flowers painted in this period have disappeared without trace. Some were painted in one century and then nothing was heard of them for a century or so when they reappeared once again. The arum lily, crinum, strelitzia and clivia are examples of this.