Burbank Amongst the Flowers and the Famous... (photo-essay)

Tuesday last, I chaired a board meeting of the Western Sonoma County Historical Society held each month in the "Caretaker's Cottage" at Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Experiment Farm in Sebastopol, Northern California. I had another errand to do beforehand, so I was about an hour and half early. I got to looking at the various displays and photographs on the Cottage walls and came up with the idea of photographing the photographs for all of you who might enjoy seeing them.

I also took just a few photos that I thought you might also enjoy seeing of some of the flowers in the Cottage Garden which, due to the sweat and toil of our wonderfully dedicated volunteers, is looking gorgeous this year.

All of the plants were chosen because they represent common flowers that would have been in a Victorian-era flower garden. You can see columbines there on the left, some foxglove on the right and a little branch of one of the roses hanging there by the brick chimney. What you can't see are the lilies, coral bells and the Shasta Daisy collection (more on that later).

And here's one of the several varieties of roses at the Farm (more about Burbank's roses later):

The Farm has always been a place of flowers... Take a look at this vintage postcard dating from Burbank's time that shows rows of lilies in the background:

Obviously NOT put out by Burbank -- notice it says "Burbank's ExperimentAL Farm". Burbank called it his "Experiment Farm"!

Inside the Cottage are some of my favorite Burbank photos. Like this portrait of Burbank at middle-age:

Burbank had some famous friends who liked to pose for photos with him --

Like fellow Sonoma County resident, author Jack London (on right):

And Helen Keller -- shown in the photo below with Burbank holding some Shasta Daisy flowers and standing in front of Burbank's beloved "Lebanese Cedar" tree in the front yard of his house in Santa Rosa, California, under which he is buried.

Speaking of Shasta daisies -- the Cottage Garden at the Farm in Sebastopol has a growing collection of them... Here are a few photos I took of some of them the other day.

This one is a new variety I wasn't familiar with: " Ice Star" --

Pretty...

And here is a widely available dwarf variety: "White Knight" --

I'd never heard of this next one before, either: "Amelia" --

Here is Burbank on his trusty bicycle:

When I worked for an old Santa Rosa wholesale nursery that had been in the hands of the same family for three generations and dated from Burbank's time, I asked the patriarch of the family (who still worked at the nursery every day -- well into his 70s and 80s) one time if he remembered when Luther Burbank was still alive in Santa Rosa. He replied: "Oh, yes... When we were kids, we thought he was just some crazy old guy with wild, white hair who rode around town all the time on his bicycle..."

Funny... :o)

The bicycle, by the way, is still around and in the collection of the Sonoma County Museum in Santa Rosa.

This next vintage photo is my absolute favorite... It shows Burbank in the middle, Thomas Edison on the left and Henry Ford on the right -- three Americans whose inventive minds and enterprising spirits revolutionized the world. Things that we take for granted every time we flip on a light switch, drive our cars to the store or pop a McDonald's french fry in our mouth... All of these things were the fruits of their labors that created ripples in the pond of the history, still being felt, even today...

Three of the greatest minds their age had to offer that changed the world forever...

What a powerful, powerful photo...

I have a particular interest in this next photo stemming from a bit of contraversy concerning certain roses growing at the Farm today. The consensus amongst senior researchers at the Farm is that most of these large stands of roses don't date from Burbank's time but, rather, from the time after Burbank's death when representatives from Stark Bros. nursery (out of Missouri -- an old and valued customer of Burbank's who sent reps to the Farm to catalog the plants after he died) lived in the Cottage.

I, of course, don't agree. I think that all of the roses growing at the Farm today were varieties that, if they're not actually Burbank hybrids, they are some of the remaining "parent plants" that Burbank used to create some of his hybrids.

I never paid much attention to this next photo until I realized that the plants shown are roses. I'm not certain where the photo was taken but it does look like the Farm's light, sandy soil there at the bottom. (Santa Rosa -- where Bubank also carried out his plant breeding experiments -- has dark clay-type soil.)

The photo is pretty faded, but you can just make out near the center of the bottom of the photo a few single-petaled roses growing on a common stem (polyanthus) that appear to have light centers with darker edges:

Here is a photo of Burbank himself standing beside some of his roses:

(For some reason, whenever I'd looked at this photo before, I always thought they were hydrangeas rather than roses... I don't know WHY I thought that. Just never really paid attention, I guess.)

Now, here's a photo I took just the other day of one of the roses blooming at the Farm:

What do you think of my "evidence" so far? :o)

From the ole singlewide here in the wild hinterlands of Sonoma County, Northern California --

'Til next time, precious Gatherers!

luv,

jean