Hello and Welcome to the garden of Roses of Yesterday and Today.
This rose business was established by Francis E. Lester in the 1930's, continued by Will Tillotson from 1948 to 1957, and carried on by Pat's mother, Dorothy Stemler until her passing in 1976. Patricia Stemler Wiley and her husband, Newton Wiley, ran Roses of Yesterday for the next twenty years until they retired.
Since 1998, Jack Wiley and his wife, Guinivere (Jenny), continue to keep the garden open to the public and offer potted roses every day from 9 until 4. Old roses, selected modern, unusual, and rare rose varieties are available. Since 2010, they have teamed with one with one of the best growers with over 30 years experience in rose propagation, to bring many old varieties back into cultivation as one and two gallon own root roses, as well as five gallon potted roses, available for shipping year-round!
The Roses of Yesterday and Today Garden, which has developed with the help of four generations of the Wiley/Stemler family, has more than 230 rose varieties on display. Picnic tables are available.
The History of Roses of Yesterday and Today
by Guinivere Wiley
The
story of Roses of Yesterday and Today begins with the well-known
authority on old roses, Francis E. Lester. He was attributed with
collecting and keeping available many old roses and writing about the
subject in his book My Friend, The Rose published by J. Horace
McFarland Co. in 1942. According to Thomas Christopher’s book In Search
of Lost Roses, Lester was born in England’s Lake District in 1868 and
grew up during the heyday of England’s romance with the rose. He moved
to the United States around the turn of the century and spent nearly 25
years in Mesilla Park, New Mexico where he grew a 2 acre rose
garden. In his mid fifties he and his wife moved to
California. He searched the foothills and missions of
California where he recognized the old roses from his childhood
and collected cuttings for propagation. Pat Wiley said it
was an honor for him when the British Government allowed him to
quarantine roses at Sunnydale Nursery in England for export to the
U.S. He settled with his wife Marjorie, in Corralitos, south
of Santa Cruz in 1938 on the Central Coast among “the circles of
redwoods.” Nestled on four acres of beautiful forest, he created
a display garden and propagation field along a quiet mountain stream.
The business was called “Lester Rose Gardens” and some of the
roses can still be found at that address just up the road from the
current “Roses of Yesterday and Today Garden.” Lester put out the
Lester Rose Gardens catalog that served as a model for the rose
catalogs for years to come. He wrote in 1941, “This catalogue
differs from many catalogues you will receive; it has no
expensive colored illustrations, and, I hope, no extravagant
claims. But it does offer you the benefit of long experience with
roses; it tries to tell the truth; and it offers you
nothing that has not been tried out and found to be of real merit, not
for the expert horticulturist but for the amateur gardener, whom we try
to serve faithfully, and whose interests we hold to be paramount. My occasional personal comments about the Old Roses, I trust, be
excused, for they come from the heart.”
Francis E. Lester’s successor, Will Tillotson, carried on the tradition of the “chatty catalog” updating descriptions with “field notes, customer comments, notes from reference books, and unties the ‘old sack of adjectives’ and submits his efforts to your tender mercies.” He and Marjorie Lester ran the business together and it became "Lester and Tillotson Rose Gardens" for a while, and then Will Tillotson succeeded with his business named "Will Tillotson's Roses." The catalog, however, was usually titled Roses of Yesterday or Roses of Yesterday and Today. Will Tillotson and Dorothy Stemler lived a short distance down the stream from the Lester Rose Gardens and across the street from where the “Roses of Yesterday and Today Rose Garden” is today.
Will
Tillotson wrote approximately ten catalogs and the book Garden Notes,
Will Tillotson - Diaries which can be viewed at the UCSC Library,
Special Collections. Dorothy Stemler, became Will Tillotson’s
“Honorable Secretary.” He introduces her and describes himself in the
1952-1953 Roses of Yesterday catalog, “Your letter (which we hope to
receive), will be answered by Mrs. Dorothy Stemler, ‘Honorable
Secretary,’ hardworking and efficient, who through some undue modesty,
begs her physical attributes remain undescribed. She spends much
of the summer in the growing fields . . . knows more about the personal
habits of roses than any of us . . . likes humans. The
catalog-writer surveys [himself] ‘the irrepressible Will Tillotson’
with many misgivings and feels the less said the better.
Variously described, according to taste, as something midway between
Monty Woolley and an old goat ( the beard and the stubbornness no
doubt). Grows the roses WE like, regardless of profit . . . Jack
of All Trades in our business and certainly master of none.
Enjoys some people, shuns others. You definitely wouldn’t like
him.” He states in the 1955 catalog “This catalog will not try to
impress you with great ‘professional knowledge,’ which we do not claim
. . . rather that we have ‘good taste’ in roses, and those which we
offer from the hundreds available to us for propagation, all of them
are distinct rose personalities.” Will Tillotson and Dorothy
Stemler said they were privileged to acquire and grow many roses sent
to them by Graham Stuart Thomas in England, and indebted to Dr.
Griffith J. Buck of Iowa State University.
Dorothy Stemler’s
daughter, Patricia Stemler Wiley, took care of Francis E. Lester in his
final days as he suffered from leukemia. She later worked with
her husband, Newt Wiley, propagating roses for Will Tillotson. After Will Tillotson passed away on a trip to England in June,
1957, Dorothy Stemler continued to run the business as “Will
Tillotson’s Roses” with the help of Pat Wiley and her husband.
Dorothy and Pat established the current “Roses of Yesterday and Today
Garden.” They spent time in England, France, Germany, Scandinavia and
New Zealand, touring gardens, and visiting with friends like Graham
Thomas, Peter Beales, David Austin, and Trevor Griffiths. Both
women traveled worldwide, giving talks to various rose societies and
associations. When Dorothy Stemler passed away in 1976, the
business name was officially changed to “Roses of Yesterday and Today.”
Patricia Stemler Wiley and her husband, Newton Wiley, ran the business
for 20 more years until 1996 when they finally retired in their 70’s. A vast collection of books on roses, 4 albums, 2 scrapbooks,
and photos and prints dating back to 1917, which would have been in the
libraries of Francis Lester, Will Tillotson, and Dorothy Stemler, were gifted to the UCSC library in 1996 by Patricia Stemler Wiley.
The garden is 40 minutes north of Monterey, 20 minutes south of Santa Cruz, and one and a quarter hour south of San Francisco. The beautiful mountain canyon, with its great redwoods, maple trees, ferns and a rippling stream is peaceful and enchanting to visit any time of the year, but the roses are at their peak during May and June. Each Mother’s Day is the Annual Open House, when the garden is bursting with new blooms and the season’s potted roses. Cookies, ice tea and lemonade are served and members of the family are on hand for questions and recommendations.
Descriptions and photos of old, rare, unusual and selected modern roses currently available as well as rose recommendations for special conditions such as shade, seaside conditions, cold climates, and roses suitable for pergolas, fences, training for pillars, etc. can be seen on the Roses of Yesterday and Today Garden’s web site, www.rosesofyesterday.com.
Roses of Yesterday and Today Rose Garden
803 Browns Valley Road, Corralitos, CA 95076 (831)728-1901
