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Join The Potomac Rose Society on Sunday March 17 at 2:00 PM as we welcome nationally recognized rose gardener, scholar, and author Connie Hilker. Connie is the author of Heritage Roses: A Collection of Essays and Lessons, and collecting and preserving heritage roses has been her passion since 2002. In this presentation, she will give us a brief synopsis of rose history and discuss some of the most significant heritage roses, including those that grow in the mid-Atlantic. Connie will let us know how to be ever ready to take and successfully propagate cuttings from abandoned old garden roses that we might encounter growing along a roadside. She will even include a few tips on how to try to identify an unknown, old garden rose. Whether or not you have heritage roses in your own garden, you will expand your understanding of rose culture from this presentation.
America is the original home of several species roses, and since colonial times, flower loving immigrants imported, planted, and bred roses. Over the centuries roses were nurtured, and hybridized, as settlers expanded westward, planting roses in gardens, public parks, cemeteries, and other public and private spaces. Some they tended, but others they abandoned as breeders developed newer cultivars in response to growing conditions and market trends. Some of the roses that remained popular over decades, or managed to thrive though neglected became the interest of heritage rosarians. These rose lovers took special care to try to identify unknown roses that had survived over time, often with limited human intervention. They kept alive roses that found limited contemporary favor. They recognized roses of horticultural significance, even when those roses did not align easily with contemporary taste or life demands. Heritage rosarians combine history, horticulture, and detective work in their gardening practice!
This program is FREE and open to the public. You must register to receive a Zoom link.
If you are not a member, and would like to access our helpful members only information and resources, or would like more information about Potomac Rose Society, please visit:
https://www.potomacrose.org/join-us
ARS Consulting Rosarians will earn one credit toward recertification for attending this program.
