The Avant Gardener News Letter
August/September 2000
Gold Award And Roses

The VanDusen Gold Award Of Excellence

The highlight of the British Columbia gardening season this year was the VanDusen Flower and Garden Show held from June 2 to 4 at the VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver. Attended by over 24,000 people, with a mix of over 200 exhibits of garden related products and theme gardens, the show is the largest outdoor show in North America. This year's theme, The Evolution of Gardens, celebrated gardening and gardens through the ages.

Our VanDusen Award Winning Display Click On The Pic To Enlarge

The Avant Gardener, for the second year in a row, won the top Gold Award for Excellence in Exhibit Design and Display for Small Theme Gardens. In a 20' x 15' space, our Cottage Garden theme featured typical herbaceous cottage garden plants contained by an aged picket fence. Visitors entered through a rustic twig arch and strolled along a curving brick-lined pea gravel path, taking in the array of plants and garden accents old and new: birdbath, gazing globe, sundial, bird house, St. Francis statue, concrete bunnies, frogs and mice, stepping stones, and a colourful rooster. A tiny lawn featured a cedar bench and table, and a croquet set ready for playing.

Our VanDusen Award Winning Display Click On The Pic To Enlarge

We are very proud of our resident master display artist, Georgina, who created and produced the tableau. For 2001, the theme of the VanDusen Show is "Passion". Watch for how we interpret this one!

Roses In Germany

Following MY passion for Old Garden Roses, in mid June I travelled to Germany on a tour with the English Historic Roses Group, visiting Westfalenpark in Dortmund, Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel, and the high point of the trip, Sangerhausen, near Leipzig.

Opened in 1903, Sangerhausen's Rosarium covers 12.5 hectares of well tended gardens, including a fine arboretum and perennials. The rose collection includes about 7000 different kinds of roses, particularly old, rare and species roses not found elsewhere. Over 3000 cultivars are unique to Sangerhausen.

Polyantha Roses At Sangerhausen Click On The Pic To Enlarge

Charles Quest-Ritson writes that "the Germans have successfully preserved this garden and its collection thru 2 world wars, economic disaster in the 1920's, 12 years of Naziism, an inch-by-inch invasion in 1945, and 40 years of Communism."

For over 20 years, with very limited resources, the director, Frau Hella Brumme, has maintained this living rose museum. Furthermore, almost singlehandedly she is currently working on the monumental task of creating a database cataloguing all of Sangerhausen's roses. Each rose will have high resolution pictures and descriptions of its various parts and stages at different times of the year.

The pictures of one variety of a rose can be imported alongside pictures of another variety to allow for comparison and contrast in identifying individual roses. Our group was treated to a demonstration by Frau Brumme on her computer. Hopefully within 2 years this database will be available as a website for paid subsribers with a password. It will provide a wonderful tool for the study of the rose.

Rambling Roses At Sangerhausen Click On The Pic To Enlarge

In the meantime Rosarium Sangerhausen needs your help to preserve this valuable collection with its unique gene pool. You can become a Friend of Sangerhausen by sending DM40 (German funds) to: Rosarium Sangerhausen Steinberger Weg 3 06526 Sangerhausen Germany

In August I am off to Toronto and New York to discover new trends and seek out new and exciting products. I will report my findings in the next newsletter. Until then......
Take time to smell the roses,    

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Contact Us: 1460 Marine Drive, West Vancouver, B.C. V7T 1B7 • Tel: (604) 926-8784 • Fax: (604) 926-1427 • Email: darlene@avantgardener.com