The Ninth International Heritage Rose Conference
Charleston, South Carolina
October 14-19. 2001
by Jill Perry
Introduction
I had one of the best times I've had in years! First of all, I had no trouble getting there. The flights were crowded, and one flight had to detour around a storm, but my e-tickets saved my having to wait in line, and at 4:45 am, there were no long lines at the security check in. For those who decided not to come for fear of flying, I'm so sorry that you missed a great conference. For those of us who went, I think we were all ready to have a very happy, very social time. I'm sure I'm not the only one who had not been feeling very socially-oriented for the month after September 11, and this event made a welcome coming back out of my shell.
There were many people there who I'd heard of because of their books or their work with roses- Odile Masquelier, Gwen Fagan, Hella Brumme, Trevor Nottle, Dr. Henry Najat, Ruth Knopf, Malcolm Manners and Mike Shoup- who I had the great pleasure of meeting and getting to know a bit. Several friends were there as well- Margaret Rose, Phyllis McLaughlin, Mel Hulse, Greg Lowery, Philip Robinson, Marlea Graham, Barbara Oliva, all from central California. A few people I'd "met" online through forums and emails, and finally got to really meet them, which was wonderful- Toni Cartisano, James Sagmiller (who grows 81 tea roses in a city-sized lot in Las Vegas, and is a fantastic painter of roses) and Gilles Noisette (yes, he is related to the originators of the Noisette rose class.) Then there were new friendships formed with complete strangers- Margaret O'Gorman of Scotland, David and Crenagh Elliott of Victoria, B. C., Allison McGee from Nova Scotia and Marilyn Raff of Colorado. It turns out that Marilyn and I are both friends of John Starnes (who was not at the conference, unfortunately) and we grew up about 10 miles apart in New Jersey. Finally, there were all the local committee members- Charleston natives and long time residents who treated us to their famous Southern hospitality, and who are all obviously very much in love with the city of Charleston and the surrounding countryside.
Speakers
All of the talks were interesting, and the slides were excellent. In general, the emphasis was on the Noisettes, which originated in Charleston, with a lesser emphasis on the Tea and China roses. I'm not going to say a lot about each talk, but when the booklet of transcripts comes out to refresh my memory, I may add more. Talks were given in the mornings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, plus one after dinner talk. Here is a list of the speakers and topics, with a few comments.
John Meffert: Charleston at the Time of John Champneys and Philippe Noisette.
John is a knowledgeable local historian and a very entertaining speaker with evangelical zeal, and I hope his closing remarks are also included in the conference book. Ruth Knopf and Greg Lowery: The Old Noisette Roses. What they were and how they were rediscovered.
Marie Butler Coker and Malcolm Manners: Rediscovering the Musk roses, ancient parent of the Noisettes.
Students at Florida Southern College have used DNA to show that most roses identified as R. moschata, Champney's Pink Cluster or Blush Noisette really are those roses, and that R. moschata and Old Blush were indeed the parents of Champney's Pink Cluster, and that Champney's is indeed the parent of Blush Noisette.
Greg Grant: Old Blush and Roses of China.
Greg lives in Texas and has found many China roses living there in conditions that make you wonder how the people can survive. He is very entertaining as a speaker and as a companion on long bus rides.
Gwen Fagan: Teas, Chinas and Noisettes at the Cape of Good Hope.
Odile Masqualier: What became of Blush Noisette in France- The Tea-Noisette Roses.
Trevor Nottle: The Oriental Trade and the Rose.
The early part of the talk was on the importation of roses to Europe and Australia from China. The latter part was on those roses and their descendants found in Australia.
Phillip Robinson: Tea Roses- Wrong or right, sorting their names and histories.
A large number of tea roses are probably being sold under the wrong name. I really need to see the text to keep up with this one. Then I need to see the slides again. Then I need to put new labels on most of my own slides of tea roses.
Marijke Peterich: Preservation of Old Garden Roses in Bermuda.
Rosamund Wallinger: The Restoration of Gertrude Jekyll's 1908 Garden and her use of old roses.
When the Wallingers moved to The Manor House, Upton Grey, Hampshire , England, the gardens designed by Jekyll were completely derelict. Rosamund found the original plans with plant lists and completely restored the gardens. She has also written a book about it, in case you are a Jekyll fan and didn't get to the talk.
Michael Shoup: In Search of the Forgotten Roses
He is another Texan who has sought out and propagated roses found in cemeteries and by old houses. His foundlings are sold through his nursery, the Antique Rose Emporium.
Charleston
I fell in love with Charleston. It is beautiful and very old, and the streets are narrow, and a few of them are brick. We had a bus tour of the city on Sunday, and a picnic lunch and tour of the Noisette Study Garden at Hampton Park on Monday. On Tuesday we were led on a walking tour of gardens and old houses on the "Rose Trail" planted in the oldest parts of Charleston. I also spent most of Saturday walking around town. If it weren't for July and August, and the threat of hurricanes and earthquakes, I could easily decide to move there. To see my pictures of Charleston, click here.
Tours
During the conference we took a bus tour to Boone Hall, a plantation site where Ruth Knopf has been planting Tea, Noisette and China roses (among other roses and underplantings)for the last 5 years. We all went wild photographing the roses. Boone Hall had the longest Live Oak allée of any plantation we visited.
Shortly after getting back from Boone Hall we boarded buses to go to Middleton Place. It is still owned by the family that started it, but now managed by the Middleton Place Foundation. (To see their website,
click here.) The original formal gardens were restored during the early 1900s. The stable yard is now a living history center, where we saw several people doing crafts like pottery, weaving, and barrel making. We were treated to drinks, hors d'ouvres and live music while watching and talking to the craftspeople, after which we had a fantastic dinner, more live music and dancing. At the requeat of one attendee, we all were taught how to dance the Charleston.
There were four post-conference tours, two on Thursday and two on Friday. We could each only go on one each day. If anyone reading this went on the half day tours, please send me a synopsis that I can add to my comments on the full day tours. Pictures would be great, too.
The Brookgreen Gardens tour (website) was amazing. I had never heard of the place before. It is full of walled gardens, fountains and sculptures. One could easily spend a couple full days there. We had lunch at the carriage house of nearby Litchfield Plantation, which our guide said was the only plantation to still have both the original house and live oak allée. Much of the grounds, however, have been turned into expensive housing tracts. The lunch was delicious, as were all the meals provided by the conference. Many of us found our clothes shrinking in the waistline area by the third or fourth day.
The Wadmalaw Island tour went to the only tea plantation in the U.S. (but unfortunately, the owners didn't turn up to give us the tour and video. We looked at the tea plants anyway.) Then we went to Rockville at the end of the island. It was a summering place for plantation owners, and is still a nice village for spending the summers. We had lunch at a place known as "high point" which is a good 10 or 15 feet above sea-level, and the highest part of the island. The house there is lovely, with a huge live oak in front and a fairly new rose garden (of old teas, noisettes and chinas, of course) to the side. We had lunch under the oak.
To see my pictures of the places we visited, click here.
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