Hello all!

This might be a little bit off the wall, I am a botanical illustrator and I want to start a series of portraits of roses. I have been trying to find information about historical rose cultivars, and victorian rose collections. Can anyone direct me toward a good resource - either books, websites or people (willing to be pestered with questions :D)?

Or even modern cultivars with a story behind them would be great too!

Most of my google searches have lead me to bed and breakfasts!

Thank you for any help you can provide!

Happy Growing

@mozartofsilence

If you do your Google search for heritage roses, you will get a lot of hits.

Here is a link to the Sacramento Old City Historic Garden

http://oldcitycemetery.com/ros...

Here is a link to the rose volunteers news letter (You can view the newsletters without being a member)

http://oldcitycemetery.com/ros...

A link for Google images for the Sacramento Historic Rose Garden

https://www.google.com/search?...

Here is a link to the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden

http://www.heritageroses.us/

Here is a link to the "Wall of Roses" on the site

http://www.heritageroses.us/Wa...

Here is a link to photos at the SJHRG

https://fm70.triple8.net/fmi/w...

A link from a Google search for images of the SJHRG

https://fm70.triple8.net/fmi/w...

You can also view the catalogs prepared by Jeri Jennings for their spring sales.

A couple of links

http://www.theheritagerosesgro...

http://www.theheritagerosesgro...

You can check out the Heritage Rose Group here:

http://www.theheritagerosesgro...

You can search the NGA Rose database by Class

You can search another database by Class that is called HelpMeFind

https://www.helpmefind.com/ros...

A friend of mine maintains a site of rose photos called Just Our Pictures.

You can find great photos of roses and if you chose to view both the Sacramento Historic Rose Garden and the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, just click on SITE INDEX and then on ROSES BY GARDEN.

This should get you started.

Feel free to ask any more questions.

Kylie and good luck in your search.


Really impressive 'linkage' there, Lyn!

Yes, Lyn. WOW!

IrisLilli said: Kylie and good luck in your search.


Really impressive 'linkage' there, Lyn!

Thank you .. Also, thank you for the acorn ...

I have more links ...

I have volunteered at both the Sacramento and the San Jose rose gardens ...

They are far more impressive in person.

Oh my gosh thank you so so much!

I'm not too far away from the cemetery I should plan a visit soon

Kylie ....

It's a wonderful garden. You should check the newsletter to find out the date of the spring opening. It's a glorious event ...

Since I wrote about the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, I am going to take the opportunity to post one of my favorites photos from the garden. I saw it on the images page, so I don't think it will be a problem to share it here, even tho' it is not my photo.

The man in the photo is Mel Hulse who worked as curator of the garden from the very beginning. I miss him so much. The woman in the photo is Jill Perry ... the current curator.

The rose grew from a bird drop ....

Lyn, that is amazing, do you know which rose it is?

Hi Porkpal ...

Since it's a bird drop, who knows ? We know it has multiflora in it, but it is not the species rose.

There are over 5,000 roses in that garden and the open pollinated hips feed a lot of birds. The birds poop and a new rose is born ...

Mel just let this one grow up an old dead pepper tree.

Absolutely gorgeous!

This is somewhat tangential, but it seems to me that the foundational work in rose illustration was done by Redouté. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... His work is so good that, IMO, he still sets the bar for rose illustrators. The Taschen publication of his watercolored roses prints, Redouté Roses, is available at Amazon.com, and I would highly recommend it.

Here are some books of merit for their rose photography:
-- Stirling Macoboy's The Ultimate Rose Book. It does have a lot of coverage of modern roses, but it does a creditable job of covering old roses, too.
-- Tony Lord's Designing with Roses. Not a rich source of graphic material, but Lord is among the most artful of rose photographers for showing how roses integrate into a garden that is about more than just roses.
-- Botanica's Roses (the full sized monster which - as is probably true of the other two titles - must be out of print.) - broad coverage of roses with photographs of a consistently high quality. One of my favorite gardening books for just browsing and inciting rose-lust.

I write about books because I find that there are precious few online photos that possess the kind of detail in garden textures that one can find in a largish, high resolution color print. A serious artist might care about this.

Good Luck!

UC Davis

Other ideas :
Search on Old Garden Roses at google. Or find roses some other way as shown below and google their names.

Visit rose suppliers with good search capabilities, such as Rogue Valley Roses http://www.roguevalleyroses.co... Try selecting roses in every class except Hybrid Tea, Floribunda, and Miniature rose classes. Antique Rose Emporium and A Reverence for Roses have a pretty large selection of old roses.

As Lyn suggested Help Me Find is a good place http://www.helpmefind.com/rose... . Try using the criterion before1920 in the search. This does produce 2000 + results, many with no rose photos; but maybe there is a rose photo in there that would be inspiring.

Kylie, while this is not a "historical" rose, to my recollection, its name "Candy Stripe" perhaps may be of interest to you. Way back in 1944, in New Jersey, the idea arose to form groups of Female hospital volunteers, and Female Nurses aides, before I believe, Nurses Auxiliaries. They wore an outfit made out of pink and white stripes, referred to as "candy Strip" fabric, and hence the volunteers were known as "Candy Stripers"! Here is an old picture of a "Candy Stripe" rose which I no longer have any longer. Good luck with your project!

I hope this works. Inserting a link for one of my favorite garden books ever-and it is about roses, rose history and all kinds of good stuff. I have worn my copy down to a nubbins rereading it multiple times a year because I enjoy it so much. https://www.goodreads.com/book...

porkpal said:Lyn, that is amazing, do you know which rose it is?

Porkpal ... I forgot that Mel named the rose 'Guadalupe Volunteer'. Here is the link to the rose page on HelpMeFind .. Mel was a volunteer Admin on the site ..

You can see more photos of the rose

https://www.helpmefind.com/ros...

Thanks, Lyn.

mozartofsilence said:Oh my gosh thank you so so much!

I'm not too far away from the cemetery I should plan a visit soon

Please forgive me.

I live across the pond from you on that little island known as Great Britain. I have adry sense of humour.
I'm not too far away from the cemetery I should plan a visit soon.

Please don't. You are far too young.