Fall is coming to the garden with day time temperatures in the 70s and nights in the high 40s. Blooms are magnificent, larger than in the summer. Teas are particularly splendid. The OGRs and Rugosas have set varied and colorful hips. The garden will stay that way until month's end and later. We have stopped deadheading and stopped budding standards in place. By the way, the 10' weeping standard has taken!

Donations. Thanks to Regan's Nursery for around 25 English Roses to help fill out our collection.

Volunteers. Help continues to improve as we gain one or two new helpers a week. I have selected Bracey Tiede as my assistant and others are near that status. This Saturday (Oct 10), we had help from 100 members of the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity from the Univ. of California who pounded stakes, mulched, cut suckers, planted roses and other cleanup work. We hope they will return during pruning time. The Saturday before, Community Impact, a local service organization, gave the garden 5 hours of 40 volunteers to plant roses and clear suckers. This was the fifth help day this great organization has given the garden.

Planting. From time to time during the next few months, we will be working on planting the roses held at Tom Liggett's and at Vintage Gardens nurseries. In addition, we will acquire 200 cuttings of 'Manettii' understock to stick in empty spaces in the garden. These will be budded in the summer for new varieties, 'de la Grifferaei' standard stock and varieties overrun by understock suckering.

Signage. We are zeroing in on a new approach to identification of each rose. The original stakes are wearing out and the metal stake based plaques are too expensive and time consuming to make to get the job done in a hurry. A quicker and cheaper approach is under consideration that will get the job done sooner. More as we decide the specific answer. The goal is good signage by the ARS convention in San Jose in the spring of 2002 and acceptable interim signage until then.