Beautiful, Jeri!

Wonderful photo, Jeri! Belle looks like a beacon of light at dusk. I am sorry about the smoke down in CA, though. Come on October! Belle Story is one of Austin’s great but rarely seen roses. 100% healthy and floriferous here in PDX, and much loved by bees. Thank you for posting her ethereal bloom! Carol

Carol, you are so right. PARTICULARLY ABOUT THE BEES!!!! They truly love it.

She's a rose that deserves to be easier to acquire.

Yes, she does!

Sorry to hear that it is still smoky in your neck of the woods. Our air has recently cleared. Fingers crossed that it stays that way. Hoping that yours clears up, too.

Folly, it's clearer, now. But hot weather is coming, late this week, and Santa Ana winds, too. Santa Anas often mean that we'll get our own fires, down here.

Oh, Jeri! I hit the like button on your comment, but I meant it as a sympathy button. I’ll be thinking of you as the hot weather and winds arrive and hoping for the best. CA has already been through too much! Oregonians remember first hand from last September something of what it’s been like for Californians. Climate change is an aggressive communicator. Carol

And, Carol, the smoke is gone for now. Today is Tuesday. It's cloudy and almost chilly, but by THURSDAY some of the forecasts say 90!

It's a funny thing. Other than the dead of winter, we never see so little bloom here.

Thank you Carol. The changes here are hard to take. And it's even worse knowing that what we're seeing is happening in so many other places.

I visited Portland, OR two weeks ago and was stunned to see how parched it looked. I had never seen it like that before.

Yeah, it was quite a summer for sure, Sheila. But I am just so grateful that even with all the fires, OR didn’t repeat last September‘s conflagration! How’s your neck of OR doing? It rained in Portland last weekend and today 🎉, but I am just about to sit down and read the news to see how Jeri and the rest of CA are faring. After COVID, we could say howdy when you’re in town! :-) Carol

Temps now running in the 90's here, just 3 miles or so from the ocean. Humidity's at 26% (up from yesterday's 23%!).

The bad news from the point of view of the garden is that mandatory cuts to water usage are coming soon.

This is going to hit us hard, because we (perhaps foolishly) never stopped conserving. So, a mandatory cut of 10%-15% in water usage means that we are going to have to go down the hill and choose what we can save, and what we must let die.

Oh, Jeri. I am so, so sorry to hear it! You are the opposite of an alarmist, so I know that what you say is unavoidable and serious. I ache for you and am sending all the deep breaths, acceptance and regrouping energy I have to offer. These are such crazy times, and I’m afraid that things are what they are with present water shotages and predictions for future cuts and the effects on CA gardens. As a species, we are long past due for taking dramatic measures to knock back escalating damage to the world’s climate.

Your garden is a decades long testament to passionate and determined rose preservation. I wish I could travel down there to help you! Can any of the roses be carefully moved to various other collectors’ gardens? Maybe a few to each adoptive home? Could cuttings be shared and shipped? I‘m sure you are way ahead of my thoughts and suggestions and I know that many of your roses are irreplaceable, large specimens of rare plants which makes the irrigation news just d@m hard to take!

With great empathy, Carol

Carol, when the time comes, I would happily give some of these roses to others. And for the rarer ones, yes. I would share cuttings.

I still think that ’Belle Story’ is one of Austin’s most beautiful creations.

Noseometer -- I agree with you completely.

It's another rose I wish were not slipping out of commerce.

Here, Carol, I got 20 inches of rain for the last rain year, which is average for here, but there were 41 days of 100 F or higher which was double the record since I have been here 7 years. Too bad the gophers are still here. I wish Ingrid and Lisa would pitch in on reports, too. I'm glad Portland is safer than most.

Jerijen - yes! I need to find a source for it!

It's well out of patent. Someone might be able to give you cuttings. I'll see if I can root a plant.

Jerijen - That's very sweet of you! I may try to beg a cutting off someone also, if I can find one locally.

Another early Austin that looks like it is going to fade into oblivion, but is a beaut, is 'Bow Bells'.

Some of those roses were, I suppose, forgettable. But others . . . It's sad to lose them.

Don’t even get me started on The Prince and Tradescant….. Carol

Poseidon, The Prince and Black Magic fading a bit after day 5-6 days in a vase, but look at the color of The Prince. He rivals Cardinal de Richelieu for deepest purple rose! And his fragrance, unlike CdR’s, is also deep—deeply satisfying.

Nose, that is a positively gorgeous specimen of Bow Bells! I’ve never seen her grown so beautifully.

Is it just me, or is the commercial way roses get created, propagated, marketed, purchased and preserved just another example of backwards nonsense? Honestly, DA and its shut-down practices when nurseries want to offer irreplaceable old cultivars just makes me want to go all philosopher-teacher on its executives. There’s no appreciation for the fact that rose creation is a joint venture between humans and nature, breeders and companies and the roses themselves. Sure, we all need to be fincially solvent, but meaning and connection to life is central, the real foundation and fulcrum of all enterprise, and when we lose touch with that understanding, bad things happen!

Different people and climates have different needs and resources just like different gardeners need different roses. Thoughtless mass production and consumption is killing the planet and its inhabitants just like voracious business practices mean the world is losing great roses, depriving our gardens of beautiful and individual plants that grow well and in good health without chemicals. Gardens yet to be planted lose opportunities for growing the right roses in the right location, and gardeners yet to be gardeners lose the possibility of the joy that only Belle Story or Bow Bells or The Prince can bring to ones eyes and nose and tending hands. Where is the appreciation of the uniqueness and intimate details of each plant and bloom? Where is the passion and the quiet ceremony?

Thank goodness actual rose gardeners carry this knowledge in our messy hands and stiff backs and are passing along the precious enlightenment with each cutting we share!

Carol