Sacramento Cemetery – Open Garden

 

'Gloire des Rosomanes', a Bourbon rose also known as 'Ragged Robin', is seldom without a bee in its bonnet.

I often write about cemeteries as the source of old rose discoveries, but I’ve rarely shown cemetery pictures. Since the Sacramento Old City Cemetery is having its big Open Garden on Saturday, April 18, I thought it would be fun to post a few photos that I’ve taken there in the past two years.


Festive tents behind a massive shrub of the China rose, 'Mutabalis', are a meeting place for information and rose sales. Rosarians, from all over California, gather to kick-start the rose season and enjoy Sacramento’s early blooming historic roses.
A photographer, with a rose in her hat, is focused on Rosa banksiae banksiae 'White Lady Banks', which is the double form and smells of violets. Really.

Many roses at the cemetery grow without bounds and can be seen frolicking high into tall trees. The garden contains more the 500 historic roses gathered from sites throughout California.
My friend Mary Knowles is caught between the white 'Fortuniana', a Banksia hybrid also smelling of violets, and the vigorous Tea, 'Mrs. B. R. Cant' (a rose on my wish list).

The cemetery was built on high ground as a protection from floods. Brick retaining walls, forming large square plots, raise the ground even higher, and have become ideal canvases for rose beauty and prowess.
Rosa Brunonii 'La Mortola' [Himalayan Musk Rose] can easily scale a 40' tree.
California poppies scatter their seed amongst the roses as an appropriate and ideal underplanting.
'De la Grifferaie' a Rambler whose name I love. Can anyone translate it? Let me know.
When Barbara Oliva and Anita Clevenger discovered that the city was storing old iron fencing pieces, they cleverly put them to use as fanciful tuteurs and arches.
This is a foundling Rambler collected by both Joyce Demits and Fred Boutin. Joyce called hers 'Raspberry Ripples' and Fred called his 'North Bloomfield Raspberry' (the name it is labeled in the cemetery). Some think it could be 'Flora', a French rose from 1830. A plant from this rose will be in the silent auction.   http://www.rosenotes.com/2009/04/sacramento-cemetery-open-garden.html