Yay - I have talked my DH into going to this meeting too - I am so looking forward to it.

Jackie

Dunno who he is, but DANG! I'd love to hear the talk!

Jeri - Thanks for responding - if you have never heard of him, that is real data of the kind I was looking for. I will find out this evening whether they tape the presentations or not, and how I can get a copy if they do. If not, I will just take LOTS of notes and write them up on here.

Jackie

I'm amused to see the "Rush Family Gallica" has made its way into his catalog!

That list of roses finally jogged my memory, Jackie. Alexander Nurseries has had a booth and been selling roses at the Celebration of Old Roses in Albany the past 2 or 3 years or so (I found an announcement on Instagram from 2024 saying they would be there, and videos that they took of the show in 2025). They have been bringing a really nice collection of bands and plants including a bunch of classics, oldies and rarities. Here's an article from the Bay Area Reporter where, by the way, he expresses his admiration of 'Marianne'.

@catspa_zone9sunset14 Thanks for pointing that out. Happy to read that. :-)

This is quite exciting, and goes against the sad trend of old rose nurseries closing their doors. On their list I saw a number of once blooming European OGRs that I have not seen offered for sale since Vintage closed its doors.

Currently I am attempting a primarily white garden, but if I change my mind in a few years I will try to get some of their damasks and galllicas. (I did not see any albas.) They would suit my zone 5 garden well. I have planted most of the white cultivars that are easily available from other nurseries, except for the ones that grow too large for my space.

Thank you, Jackie!

Again, the list of roses I posted above include ONLY the "old or sort of old" ones I DID NOT recognize the names of. So, there may be old ones you might be interested in - I am assuming that you can get the full list by emailing him.

Meanwhile, I of course got busy, and now I CANNOT find the notes I took during his talk on propegating roses. Below is just what I can remember, which is not complete at all, and not really his method - just the main points I can remember. Also remember that he propagates and grows roses ONLY in San Francisco and Sebastopol in Northern CA, which have a cool / rainy winter (no snow), and a cool/foggy summer in SF, and a hot/dry summer in Sebastopol. So, if you are in a very different climate you should probably ignore the below.

1) Cold (for here) winter propagating: It is basically a COMMERCIAL VOLUME version of the "burrito" method which has been discussed on here before (and which I tried once and it failed , but now I think I know why - I did not store the cuttings in a dark enough or cold enough environment).

1) Take about 10 - 12 10 inch cuttings of one rose, and cut the BOTTOM of them flat, and the TOP of them slanted. This is so you can remove all of the leaves and buds, (which you should do), and still tell the top of the cutting from the bottom so you don't pot it up upside down! This should be done after it has gotten as chilly/cold as it is going to get and it must remain cold for 6 weeks (personally, I am going to try a very mini version of this in a sealed container in my fridge, as our weather is not as reliable re temps as it is in SF).

2) Zip tie the cuttings together in the middle, along with a LABEL for the name of the rose. Repeat this as many times as you have cuttings (he fills up an entire garbage can with them).

3) Get a huge amount of perlite. Get a metal garbage can with a lid.

4) Dampen the perlite - it should end up damp, not wet.

5) Put a layer of perlite in the bottom of the can. Then put a cluster of your cuttings HORIZONTALLY on top of the perlite.

6) repeat layering perlite and cuttings until the garbage can is full.

7) Put on the lid, and put the garbage can somewhere where the cuttings will NOT get any light, and will be in a cold environment (remembering that here it rarely gets even into the mid 30s F). Should be in shade, not sun. Do not put it near the house - too warm.

8) After 6 weeks the cuttings should have made calluses on the bottoms - then take them out of the can, take off the zip tie (leave on the NAME), and put each entire cluster of the cuttings (having dipped the bottoms of them into rooting hormone) into a one gallon black plastic can with a potting mix (I made that up - he uses a special hand made blend) with a lot of perlite in it.

9) Put them into sun (remember, in SF the sun is not very hot at all, so partial sun elsewhere might work better) with some sort of light shade cover & a mist arrangement, or at least plenty of frequent (every day) watering.

10) After they are well rooted, plant them out as you would normally.

The above DOES NOT pretend to be an accurate report.

Jackie

While on the hunt for some less common gallicas, I saw on HMF that Alexander Nurseries was listed as a source for President de Seze. I checked their site that's on Etsy, and at first they were using what looked like a stock photo of the rose, but after I contacted them to ask about it, they posted a current picture. It shows a dark pink rose of some sort that's definitely not President de Seze, so I passed.

This is a very interesting thread, thank you for posting this Jackie. I went to their website, even though I cannot order plants from them. They have a link to their HMF page that lists all their roses, so you can go directly to the variety: Link - Alexander Nurseries Plant List on HMF

There are some extraordinarily rare and beautiful roses on their list. It would seem that they sell mail order as well. It is wonderful to see a new source of these roses after years of nursery closures.

Cheers, Rick

Most plants sold as ’President de Seze’ in the US are incorrectly labeled.

I got the impression from the presentation that they are trying to get the word out that they are sellig OLD roses to the rose community. I hope some of you can use the link that Rick posted, and buy some! I was also very happy to see a NEW nursery selling old roses, instead of ones just quitting business.

Jackie