How Did It Start And What Is The Purpose?
WHYYY???
This Website is the result of a rapid slide down the path of rose gardening obsession by Bob Bauer, who used to be normal. Bob became more and more amazed as he got into seeing how different the flower colors, flower forms, bush shapes and fragrances of roses could be. Bob needed a big outlet to share all of the knowledge he has gained and to showcase his growing collection of rose photographs.
So the FIRST purpose is to show to the uninitiated rose newbie the VAST scope of variety present in just one species of plant, pictured in a high quality manner by a long time professional photographer. And also to provide the rose veteran a photographic catalogue for the purpose of identifying and selecting the next varieties for their gardens. The photography is meant to show the roses as they actually occur in the garden the way they actually look instead of the sanitized catalogue pictures one tends to find all to often that do nothing but act as a sales tool. A lot of those photos are out and out lies about what the variety actually looks like! We want to do our little part to fix that.
The SECOND purpose is to outline in detail, all of the issues and processes that you need to grow great roses in your own home gardening world. Hence the very deep and specific Rose Culture (Growing) and Rose Problems (Pests, Diseases and Deficiencies) sections.
The THIRD purpose is give access to the Web Surfer all the information they can stand about where to find, talk about and learn about rose gardening, rose varieties and hybridizing and progagating roses themselves. There are links sections for 1) Finding Rose Plants, 2) Talking About Roses and Rose Gardening on the internet. and 3) Links To BOTH rose bush buying sources AND the best rose information sites on the Web.
'Robusta'
(Hybrid Rugosa)
'Shadow Dancer'
(Climbing Rose)
Who Runs This Outfit?
The fellow in charge is a guy named Bob Bauer. He is a rose loving professional freelance photographer who has a 450 variety rose garden in his backyard.... Actually it is in his front yard, side yard, other front yard and climbing up the walls of his building, which is an old corner drugstore that he converted to his photo studio/home living space. Bob lives there with his wife, Mary Woodhead who is an attorney and vegetable gardener (Tomatoes Are Her Specialty). No kids (we forgot to have them), 2 cats (Loki and Elvis Flippy) and a love of traveling (especially road trips) as well as hiking and photographing in the Southern Utah redrock country and the Wasatch Mountains of his own backyard.
The garden is mostly in what used to be a large asphalt parking lot and a vacant lot next door with a collapsed duplex on it. It is approximately 1/2 acre total including the a 4000 sq. foot footprint building. Bob is always complaining lately that he needs more garden space. About 5 acres would probably do. His garden, as all gardens are, is a work in progress, and changes every year. He has a vegetable and herb section and a section for grapes and various berryies. He also grows several small fruit trees in large pots.
'Outa The Blue'
(Shrub Rose)
'St. Patrick'
(Hybrid Tea)
How Does An Unsuspecting Guy Become A Rose Nut? (Long)
Year Zero : Buy And Move. Well, it all started with Bob and Mary buying an old corner drugstore building and the 'vacant' lot next door. After renting the building as Bob's commercial photography studio for 5 years, they decided to buy it and to move lock stock and barrel from their victorian house rental in an up and coming yuppie neighborhood to a shaky neighborhood in the middle of the city on the wrong side of the tracks. 'Loft' living was always a goal for both of them.
Year One: The Plan, Let's Make A Garden. To make a short story long, Bob, a small stakes gardener since childhood, decided to dig up the asphalt parking lot of the drugstore and put in a garden. So he rented a backhoe/front end loader and spent a day with his friends 'playing' with it. After piling up all the asphalt in a pile at the front of the 'vacant'* lot, Bob discovered that the entire area was covered with 1 foot of 'road base' (a combination of gravel, rocks and clay that compacts into a gawd awful concrete like mass) on top of 2 feet of 'Landfill' (rocks, bricks, stone, construction debris and Misc gray clay). Uh Oh, NO SOIL AT ALL!
Year One Restart (Roses = 0): Plan B, Raised Vegetable Garden Beds. Bob then decided to make a raised bed garden (was there a choice?), so he found a source of used Railroad Ties, and outlined a couple of 7 foot by 50 foot beds. Just by chance a truck driver came by with a load of 'topsoil' that he was just going to be taking to the dump and asked Bob if he wanted it for $50. Bob said sure and the driver dumped it into the middle of one of the beds and Bob spread it out. The truck driver then asked if Bob wanted more, so he bought 3 more dump truck loads of what turned out to be soil all right, but of the heavy clay loaded variety. That was enough to fill up the beds and have 2 loads left over for the future. Bob was happy. Bob and Mary believe strongly in organic gardening practices, both for food purposes and the health of the gardeners and the garden soil, birds, bugs, bacteria, fungus and ecosystem in general. This was their big chance, so that year they planted a veggie garden and threw in a few annual flowers for fun in the raised beds. He built an L-shaped 6 foot wood fence around a partial side and the back of the property lot during the summer for some separation from the fast food taqueria next door. Nice and easy. A fun garden experience..... Bob wanted MORE!
Year Two (Roses = 0): Redo Beds And Add More For Berries And Grapes. Over the winter, Bob made big plans to build more beds. When the thaw came, he added raised beds in front of the L shaped fence where he and Mary planted 4 varieties of seedless table grapes, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and Jostaberry bushes. Then he moved the two long beds (which were kind of crooked) a few feet to make room for the berry bed and added a third raised bed on the other side. Before adding more soil and moving the beds, Bob installed his first level of underground sprinkler system and put it all on an automatic timer. He was in for a nightmare while digging trenches in the roadbase (a recurring theme for years to come.... little did he realize at the time). Even the rented industrial trench digger machine broke its saftey bolts at least 20 times. It turned out that the only way to dig the trenches involved a pickaxe, a digging bar and a lot of muscle and sweat.
After the construction, a really fun gardening season. Many more heirloom type veggies were grown and Bob added an 8 foot square raised bed herb garden for cooking with. Also that season, he threw a few more flowers in the garden, including a couple of perennials. (including Centranthus ruber... ugh! invasive! little did he know at the time what he had done...). Bob thought: Hmmmmmmmm... Perennials...... You don't have to plant them over and over again every single year. Yeah, that's the ticket....... I seeeee now........
Year Three (Roses = 8 by season end): Change Of Scale, Upping The Ante. The next winter got Bob really excited. He was going to put in more raised beds and make a big perennial flower garden! He designed the garden in detail with curving paths and unusual bed shapes and concrete edging blocks and a front fence for the yard. When the thaw came he was ready to start. First though, trenches and sprinkler systems.... UGH!!! Well, had to be done. Dig, dig, dig, sweat, sweat, sweat,....curse, curse, sweat some more..... raised beds in, topsoil in. Now, what to plant?
Here is where the story takes a funky turn. Bob and Mary's knowledge of perennials = scant. What to do? Over the winter, do research!. Bob and Mary bought books on perennials. Final decision: To buy three of every single perennial they could find (cheap or on sale of course) that would work in climate zone 6, and see what happens. They put all of the plants they had bought on a table, then sorted them by color and height. They mixed and matched and filled in the beds, including 4 roses for the end of a bed. These Are The First Roses: a yellow one: 'Golden Fantasie', a red one: 'Gypsy', an orange one: 'Arizona' and one I'd heard of before: 'Tropicana'.
Four puny little roses. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? Well, remember those books on perennials? They told Bob and Mary that the roses would bloom all summer long if you removed the old blooms after flowering. Deadheading. It worked! The roses bloomed and changed everyday. The perennials would do their thing, going through the season and looking great, BUT the roses keep going and going....like the energizer bunny! All the way till the bitter end hard hard frost. By fall they had bought 4 more roses. 'Summer Fashion' because of its incredible smell, 'Double Delight', because the potted Home Depot rose was both beautiful and fragrant, 'Charles Aznavour' (A floribunda? What's that?) bought because it was a different color than the rest, and 'Lagerfeld' a rescue of a scraggly looking plant from an end of the season close out sale. First year, 8 roses. Big Deal. Right? They didn't see it coming.
Year Four (Roses = 38 by season end): Enter rec.gardens.roses Newsgroup and More Roses! After the positive rose experience, Bob decided to put in several more rose bushes for the next season. He was thinking big..... maybe up to 10 more! So he sat down in Late October and searched the internet for some good rose information. This landed him at the UseNet newsgroup rec.gardens.roses, which at the time (Fall of 1997) was the biggest and best place to talk about roses on the internet. It was a group full of funny, friendly and helpful people with a few curmudgeons thrown in for good measure. Some of them kept calling themselves 'Rosarians'. That sounded odd to Bob. Why would anyone base their identity on their love of one particular species of flower? Bob kept reading and learning and asking a few questions here and there. For Christmas Mary bought him a copy of 'Botanica's Roses'. That book was mind boggling. Bob was utterly amazed at the sheer volume of rose varieties and sizes and shapes and colors of roses. Blown away ..........really.
As winter progressed, Bob became an RGR regular and was now planning on buying about 20 roses. He started by looking at the first piles of bagged bare root roses to show up at Home Depot. Three bucks each. It was still winter. Then he went to every single other consumer chain store. More bare roots. Over twenty total by April first, planting time. So Bob planted them and added more potted ones in May, June and July. By the end of the year Bob had 38 total and was talking and yapping on RGR continuously. He was becoming a rose super fan. That year in the garden was amazing and exciting. Tons of roses and rose blooms, deadheading and learning how to care for and fertilize roses. Roses were filling in all the empty spots in the perennial garden. What was next? Bob needed a serious plan. There was a lot to know and learn and so he started looking at the years ahead as 'Rose College'. This therefore was the end of 'Freshman Year'.
Year Five (Roses = 90 by season end): The First 'Rose Garden Only' Addition. That winter, big plans were brewing. Lots of cyber chatting going on. Bob and Mary join the Utah Rose Society and attend their first meeting 'just to see what it is like'. First miniature rose order arrives 2 months early and must be nursed by bringing the pots in and out. Lots of spring rose shopping. The garden NEEDED to expand into the old vacant lot area that had just been sitting there dormant for several years. Measurements were taken in winter and plans were drawn. Bed outlines were designed. First thing when the ground thawed, Bob rented a Front End Loader and dug up and flattened the area where the new beds were to be made. After all there was a mysterious large, low 'mound' on a good portion of the property. Surprise! The 'mound' turned out to be the remnants of a collapsed duplex that had been 'hidden' by the previous land owner instead of hauled away as the law required. Sandstone blocks, bricks, wood, plumbing pipes and clay dirt. In the process of digging he 'birthed' hundreds of reddish brown sandstone blocks which could be used to line the new raised beds. More underground sprinkler system digging and building. Whew! Plant Plant Plant.... Grow Grow Grow...
This was the first year of planting Mail Order bare root roses from specialty rose companies. At this point Bob still doesn't quite know how to plant bare root roses and make them grow without killing a few of them. Bob and Mary visit the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden and Bob begins shooting for his rose photography database in earnest. A truly fun and rewarding year of rose growing AND buying. More roses purchased. Bob builds his first web roses gallery and puts it on his commercial photography website. At the end of the season, a large public garden was being dismantled, and Bob managed to transplant 24 full sized roses from this garden in September and October. Five of them remain unidentified to this day. End of 'Sophomore year of Rose College'.
Year Six (Roses = 130 by season end):More Rose Bed Additions! Now pretty much a full adopter of 'rose lover culture'. This consists of a loose network of Rose Society members, large rose garden owners, professionals in the rose business and internet discussion folks. Over the winter reading and studying continues. Morse roses ordered of course. Lots of sources. Rose library continues to grow, now including older books found in used book shops. When thaw occurs, there is a lot more digging and birthing of rocks, followed by extensive sprinkler system installation, filling out the full main area of the 'Vacant Lot' beds by August. Another visit to more spring California Rose Gardens. Lots of photographing. Lots of potted roses for the first time. I learn that bare root roses are best grown in pots first before putting them in the ground. This delays the problem of where to put them in the garden. End of 'Junior year of Rose College'
Year Seven (Roses = 200 by season end): All Bets are off. Bob Is A Rose Addict and Admits It! Many rose books on obscure and esoteric subjects bought and digested over the winter. A lot of rose buying. Pruning and cultural practices are refined because the roses are finally getting big. Bob is getting good at this. Good enough to start giving others advice. Bob attends his first ARS Regional meeting. The fence is completed between the garden and the East neighbor. Another trip to the San Jose Heritage Rose garden and Sequoia Nursery to visit Ralph Moore. Many Miniatures bought. End of 'Senior Year of Rose College' Bob pats himself on the back for the completion of his undergraduate rose studies. We could go into boring detail, but we won't.
Suffice it to say that that is how Bob dropped out of the real world of regular folks and gave up all sense of propriety and common sense and became: 'Rose Boy'.
'Sparrieshoop'
(Shrub Rose)
Granada
(Grandiflora)
Gertrude Jekyll
(Austin/English Rose)
'John Cabot'
Shrub Rose
Latest Recent History As A Full On Rose Growing Photo Crazy....
Year Eight (Roses = 260 by season end): Bob Launches Rose-Roses.com in July 2002 The garden moves outside of the perimeter. The large 'Climbing Rose Wall Bed' is Created all along the west side of the building. This of course involves lots of digging in landfill again after first punching 20 2x2 foot holes through asphalt. Bob visits Portland for the Year of the Rose celebration and the national ARS convention in June. Bob and Mary visit Heirloom Nurseries and the Portland City Test Gardens at their absolute peak when they are all decked out for the American Rose Society convention and the 'Year Of The Rose'. Bob buys more roses of course. Moves many roses to big permanent pots. Back lawn and Cottonwood Tree Patio created. Out of room in the main areas. Uh oh..... First big dig up and give away of Bob's rose bush babies. First big group of minis potted and places in plant stand 'rooms'. End of 'FIRST year of Rose Graduate School'
Year Nine (Roses = 330 by season end): Bob Takes Over The 'City Strip' In Front of the 'Vacant Lot' AreaThis is a great bed because this strip is 70 feet long and 25 feet wide. A large bed of 54 x 8 feet is lined with Railroad Ties and built. There is room here for about 35 large roses. So in the first part of spring Bob digs up about 20 larger bushes from the interior garden and transplants them to this new bed, after giving away about 20 others to neighbors and rose society members. This leaves lots of room for new and better varieties in the interior controlled spaces. Attention is paid to planting smaller varieties in the precious interior space areas. This spring's rose trip to Bay Area includes the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, The San Jose City Garden, Regan Nursery, Vintage Gardens, The Celebration of Old Roses, Petaluma Rose Nursery, Ray Reddell's Garden Valley Ranch, Michael's Premier Roses, Roses of The North, a visit to Gregg Lowery and Phillip Robinson's Home Garden (amazing) and Sequoia Nursery again in Visalia. Miniatures increase dramatically. Hybrid Musks in pots against the East side of the building in the parking lot. End of 'SECOND year of Rose Graduate School'
Year Ten (Roses = 390 by season end): Small Addition to Front Bed...That's It? Bob takes a bit of a breather on garden construction this year and revives his energy resources in the spring. Over the winter back issues of ARS journals from 50 years ago and more are studied and pondered over. Lots of gems there. Bob can now appreciate who is who in that world gone by and listen to their sage advice. It is amazing how we are just the next generation of a group of people who have loved roses for over 200 years. Who will be the next. You? This year's big rose trip is to both Los Angeles and San Francisco, hitting many gardens and nurseries along the way. Also with another visit to Sequoia Nursery to say hi to Ralph Moore and get lots more miniatures. This is about the point where Bob has really started to grow a lot of full sized roses in pots. Something that Bob sees he will be doing a lot of in the future. The key is to hook them up with drip irrigation on timers so that you don't ever have to worry about watering them. At this point Bob has learned how critical it is to fertilize the pots regularly. End of 'THIRD year of Rose Graduate School' Bob awards himself an honorary Masters degree in 'Rose Obsession'.
Year Eleven (Roses = 440 by season end): City Strip West Beds Begin This is a spring season for Bob to catch his breath. No rose garden visits for the spring. That will wait for a July car trip across the USA to the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis, Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Park Gardens in Hartford, Connecticut and the Royal Botanical Gardens in Ontario.
Having long ago run out of interior space, Bob Begins to take over the 15 x 150 foot long city strip on the West side of his building across the sidewalk from his 'Wall Of Climbers'. Bob figures that this will keep him going for two years, because it will hold about 70 new plants. The problem is that it is even harder to dig through than normal because of 2 feet of compacted road base. Bob hires a young guy to help him and even the young guy is driven to exhaustion. Finally the holes are dug and 25 roses are transplanted from inside of the garden fence to their new homes. This after giving away another 20, leaves enough space for another year of 'business as usual'. End of 'FOURTH year of Rose Graduate School'Beginning of 'first year of Rose PhD Program Another three year course. Big knowledge here now and still learning.
Origami
(Floribunda)
Sheila MacQueen
(Floribunda)
'Autumn Damask'
(Damask)
'Playgold'
(Miniature)
NOW!............
This is where we stand as of January 2006, reading catalogues, talking on Rosarian's Corner, and ready to order and buy another batch of new rose varieties. I'm VERY picky now and must research every rose and every rose must have a bunch of recommendations or seriously attractive characteristics to even be considered. The days of any old rose will do are long over.>