A Ross rose garden with five decades of history
Gary and Janet Scales, of Ross, share not only a longtime devotion to gardening but also a longtime passion for growing and enjoying roses.
While she grew up in San Francisco without a garden, he was reared in Ross Valley with a garden and a mother who was active in a garden club. Still, his main childhood memory of gardening was his summertime hour-long chore of pulling weeds before playtime.
In 1970, after the Scales married and, after years of moving from home to home while he was on the active duty with the U.S. Navy, they found a house in Ross and settled down.
“Originally, the entire site was an enormous blackberry patch in the 1950s,” he says. “The first owner planted an orchard and vegetable beds and there was a sloping field with raspberry bushes. He had two very large gas-heated greenhouses where he grew tomatoes year-round and sold them and other vegetables and fruit to the Ross Cash Grocery Store.”
When the Scales purchased the property, “growing flowers and vegetables came naturally and was a family activity,” he says. “There were a half dozen or so roses bushes on the property and we became enamored with them.”
They quickly added a lawn area for their children and later, a swimming pool.
The couple spent winter months poring over rose catalogs and started adding roses to their garden before he eventually joined the American Rose Society. The American Rose Society, based in Shreveport, Louisiana, is the largest single plant society in America and for 125 years has promoted the culture, preservation and appreciation of the rose. It’s also home to the nation’s largest rose garden.
Scales met the late Joseph Klima, a former American Rose Society president and longtime rosarian who, with his late wife, Marion, tested roses and reported on their success — or lack of success — in for the society in their Kent Woodlands garden.
“I asked him why there was not a Marin Rose Society,” Scales says. “He and Marion said they would help (start one) if I could recruit five other members and together we started the Marin Rose Society in 1974.”
The society celebrates its 50th anniversary next year.
Besides his involvement in the Marin Rose Society, he received a bronze medal from the American Rose Society and was a trustee for the Marin Art and Garden Center for many years and spearheaded the development of its rose garden.
These days, he still walks the paths of the Marin Art and Garden Center, enjoying the idyllic garden setting so convenient to his home.
It’s his garden that he loves the most, though. Set on 10,000 square feet, it’s lush and redolent with the roses they have carefully nurtured over the years.
Initially, the garden was just a place for the children and the roses.
“Each of them would ‘adopt’ a rose or two and care for it and they all worked in the vegetable garden together. Gradually we started to formalize the rose garden. We added brick terraces, arbors and walkways. I guess one would say we were looking to create a formal English garden featuring roses as the primary focus,” Janet Scales says.
“While we kept adding more roses bushes, early on we planted large patches of corn, zucchini, green beans and tomatoes and enjoyed apples and peaches. The area devoted to roses grew by leaps and bounds and eventually reached close to 400 bushes, although we currently have fewer than 200.”
Among them are hybrid teas, floribundas, grandifloras, heirloom, David Austin and climbers.
The couple’s favorites include the old garden roses Mme. Alfred Carrière, sombreuil, Mme. Isaac Pereire and reve d’Or and the modern roses Julia Child, pristine, peace, touch of class, Gemini and hot cocoa. Sally Holmes, Penelope and Eden are treasured climbers.
As the garden grew by leaps and bounds, so did Janet Scales’ dedication to gardening.
For 40 years, she has been a member of the long-established Marin Garden Club, served as its president and guided it through the process of becoming a member of the Garden Club of America.
She also became a UC Marin Master Gardener 23 years ago and was a board member.
Like so many gardeners who create and tend a garden for years, the Scales understand that good gardens are almost always a work in progress where plants, hardscape, embellishments and approaches change over time.
Today, their garden has developed structure in the form of yew arbors and trellises, serenity in a meditation garden and intimate garden “rooms,” and drama in a 70-foot allee covered with climbing roses.
The roses are interplanted with annuals and perennials. While a 50-year old apple tree still holds its venerable position in the garden, the vegetable bed includes a dozen varieties of tomatoes plants.
“Growing roses should not be challenging,” he says. “Like humans, they respond to food and water. They like a clean bed. And, of course, they thrive on a little tenderness. Sit with them. Talk to them. Make them your friends.”
For a thriving rose garden, he suggests using compost, organic fertilizer such as alfalfa pellets (without molasses or sugar) and fish emulsion, hand-watering whenever possible, and regular clean-up of rose beds to keep roses healthy and limit rose pests.
He also suggests spending time in the garden.
“A garden is a living, growing entity,” he says. “Embrace it, touch it, smell it. Dig a handful of compost and see all the living organisms. Provide fountains for the birds and cut the squirrels a little slack. Enjoy, savor, and make it an essential part of your life.”
Show off
If you have a beautiful or interesting Marin garden or a newly designed Marin home, I’d love to know about it.
Please send an email describing either one (or both), what you love most about it and a photograph or two. I will post the best ones in upcoming columns. Your name will be published and you must be over 18 years old and a Marin resident.
Don’t-miss events
• Shop more than 140 booths of vintage and antique treasures at the French Market Marin from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Veteran’s Auditorium at the Marin Veterans’ Auditorium parking lot at 10 Avenue of the Flags in San Rafael. Call 415-383-2252 or go to thefrenchmarketmarin.com.
• Join UC Marin Master Gardeners Jenine Stilson and Keri Pon as they discuss “Edible Flowers” at 1 p.m. July 13 at the Novato Library at 1720 Novato Blvd. in Novato. Call 415-473-2050.
PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield 94914, or at pj@pjbremier.com.