SAN JOSE HERITAGE ROSE GARDEN

The Latest from the Heritage!

This page is updated from time to time to let you know what's up in the garden. 

Mel Hulse, Garden Maintenance Director

Garden Report, Summer 2002

This year's crazy weather continues to amaze. Many once-blooming Old Garden Roses rebloomed in late June. It was amazing to see Belle of Portugal in full bloom on the first of July! Modern and Tea roses fared quite well up until the third week in July when a heat wave got to many and fried the blooms.

Deadheading Blitzes. Last year we tried out the idea of 2 hour deadheading sessions starting at 5:30 in the afternoon. The kicker was that Lucy Perez, our Volunteer Coordinator, served ice cream sundaes afterward. We did three of them This was successful program that we decided to do them again this summer. The Mercury News advertised event in June brought out over 70! July's Blitz totaled 53 even without as much publicity. Further Blitz's are scheduled August 13th and September 10th. Why don't you join us for the coming sessions?

Pruning. As promised in the last report, we started to prune the once bloomers at the beginning of July. Progress to date indicates that we should finish in early August. The idea is to encourage the growth of more laterals where these old roses set blooms.

Planting. Only a few roses were planted this period as major planting efforts should await cooler weather.

Signage. Finally! The plaque engraving system has been upgraded so as to directly accept output from our curator, Ed Wilkinson's database. Not only did this speed up plaque manufacture, but it eliminates a source of operator errors and provides fonts that include the diacritical marks that are a part of many old European rose names. The upgrade involved disabling most of the engraver's internal computer and driving it with another computer that could run much more sophisticated software.

Rose Garden Subcommittee. SubRosa is composed of those Heritage Garden volunteers interested in working toward the long term survival and improvement. Meetings may be monthly or semi monthly depending on the schedule of the Friends of the Guadalupe River Park & Gardens Garden Committee. So far, the committee has been working out current Heritage plans and has proposed Heritage upgrades for Friends and City approval.

Workdays. The summer schedule is in effect--Wednesdays and Saturdays, 8 - 11. Bring bypass shears and leather gloves if you have them. We'll show you how! Its snack & yack time in the Garden center on Wednesdays after the work session. Fruit Salad time the first Wednesday of each summer month. Bring a piece of fruit! But, most of all COME!

Heritage Photo. We finally have an air photo of the garden to replace the one taken shortly after the garden was planted. Click here to see it.

Catalog. Our year 2002 catalog is available in the garden on workdays, at the garden center for a $10 donation and by mail for $15. E-mail oldroser@gmail.com for details.

Peak Bloom. There is always bloom to see at The Heritage. The first big show of the year is at the end of March when the old China and Tea roses produce a glorious bloom. The peak Spring modern rose flush is the end of April. Old Garden Roses peak about two weeks later and Polyanthas and Miniatures, a week after that. The peak Fall flush is mid-October.

Garden Center Staffing. There is now someone at the Garden Center from 9am-4pm, Monday - Friday. You can call with questions about the Heritage and other elements of the Guadalupe River Park & Gardens. Phone: 408-298-7657. If you get the answering machine, staff is probably out in the garden. Leave a message including your interest and they will return your call ASAP.

Rose Sales. I continue to get requests to buy roses. We neither sell nor custom propagate our roses. Nurseries that do are found on the links page. 

Mel Hulse, July 19, 2002

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Links to past status pages:

Spring 2002

Winter 2002

Early Fall 2001

Spring 2001

Winter 2001

Late Fall 2000

Fall 2000

Spring 2000

Late Winter 2000

Early Winter 2000

Fall 1999 Status

June 1999 Status:

October 1998 Status:

September 1998 Status:

June 1998 Status

May 1998 Status:

April 1998 Status:

March 1998 Status:

This page was last updated on 02/27/06.

Address comments to Mel Hulse