Experienced gardeners coax sticks and seedlings into a lush landscape and make plants pop. A ROSE NAMED FAIRHOPE A short drive down Gayfer Road Extension takes travelers to Taylor's Roses, a nondescript greenhouse that blends into roadside scenery. A blue sign marks the site of Fairhope's most experienced rosarians. Kay and Pete Taylor are quick to set aside pruning and tidying to give a short course on roses. Kay pegs me immediately. "You can tell right away when someone's really interested by the way they listen," she says. I admit to owning an "idiot's rose," Knockout. There's no pruning, no deadheading. Anyone can grow them. She smiles knowingly and says, "There are bunches of petals, and then there are ... roses!" She hands over a perfect butter-yellow, long-stemmed beauty. I dutifully sniff. Pete deconstructs a flower in an impromptu botany lesson. He plucks away petals, exposing the blossom's inner organs. His forefinger sweeps out pollen-bearing anthers, leaving the female parts exposed. Like a honeybee, he dusts the stigma with pollen from a different rose variety. That's how the pair bred their most successful hybrid, Fairhope. Kay attributes their prize beauty to luck. For 12 consecutive years, Fairhope won awards for best miniature show or exhibition rose in shows sponsored by the American Rose Society. "It's trial and error," adds Pete. "If it doesn't work, it doesn't cost anything to try again." TAKE HOME TIPS: Roses aren't like azaleas, which you can stick in the ground and forget. The more you give a rose, the more it gives back. When planting, remove sand and clay from the hole and replace with a mixture of aged crushed pine bark, peat moss and cured compost. To stimulate spring growth, prune canes back around Valentine's Day. They'll look like deer antlers sticking out of the ground. Taylor's Roses 8450 Gayfer Road Extension, Fairhope. 928-5008. LIVING ARTIFACTS In the early 1930s, a Japanese nurseryman in Mobile suggested that gardener Bob Green change his focus. Bob was struggling to produce lilacs and peonies, favorites in his native Chicago. As he switched to camellias and azaleas, shrubs acclimated to Gulf climates, his nursery and landscape design enterprise began to blossom. When Bob died, his son Bobby became the guiding hand at Green Nurseries. While he originally studied to be an archaeologist, Bobby's fascination with soil-bound relics drew him to the plant kingdom. Bobby's Fairhope office is strewn with old things. "The Beast," a bright yellow 1947 rototiller, peers from a hallway, poised to strike. Inside the door, the cross member from a power pole spans high windowsills. Its sunlit glass insulators gleam in various shades of blue. Toys and dry goods containers, predating America's plastic age, sit atop furnishings with weathered finishes. With a turn in any direction, Bobby can touch something older than he is. The same is true in the nursery. Camellias are living architectural artifacts. Each plant is genetically identical to its original ancestor. Real estate development in past decades decimated camellia populations, so Bobby and other gardeners have traveled the Southeast to preserve antique varieties that originated before 1900. Some of their finds are the only remaining examples of a particular variety. Sites where they once grew have been scraped into submission. The gardener remembers arriving at one site just before operators cranked their bulldozers. Bobby has helped relocate plants to gardens such as Bellingrath, Biltmore and Magnolia - places that are living history museums. Seems like a natural fit for a would-be archaeologist. TAKE HOME TIPS: "Better than any other Southern shrub, the camellia can link gardeners with generations of the past. 'My grandmother planted that camellia', or 'My uncle rooted that japonica' are still commonly heard phrases," Bobby says. Camellias won't root in water. Commercially, most plants are propagated from cuttings. August and September are the best months to start growing the plants. Stick the cutting in moist sand until it roots. Once established, plant it with a north and west exposure. In years like this one, with prolonged freezes, it's early morning sun, not cold winds, that destroys blossoms. Green Nurseries and Landscape Design, 415 N. Greeno Road, Fairhope. 928-8469. greennurseries.com Photos by Dennis Holt For more, visit Mobilebaymag.com's Home & Garden blog today.