New Nursery Opens On Palouse Highway

A new nursery in town - Tower Perennial Garden - will specialize in hostas and daylilies, but there will be much more at this country garden.

The nursery opens Saturday, but the grand opening won’t be until June. More than 700 varieties of hosta are growing on eight acres of former farmland just off the Palouse Highway in south Spokane. But there’s also a selection of many other perennials.

The nursery is at the intersection of the Palouse Highway and Jamieson Road; hours are 9 a.m.-7 p.m. daily except Sundays, when they are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. For information: 448-6778.

A rose is not just a rose

In addition to being a world leader, Franklin Roosevelt took time to smell the roses, literally. He renovated the grounds of the White House and to honor that effort, a new rose has been named for FDR.

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” a new hybrid tea, was recently christened by FDR’s goddaughter, Princess Margriet, sister of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, at a ceremony at the Netherlands ambassador’s residence on Embassy Row.

The rose is a large, high-centered hybrid tea in a light apricot. It was developed by Peter Ilsink of the Interplant company in Leersum, Netherlands. Roosevelt’s ancestors came from the Netherlands province of Zeeland in 1649, and his name, in Dutch, means “field of roses,” said Dale T. Morris, spokesman for the Netherlands Embassy.

Roosevelt himself asked to be buried in the rose garden of his family’s estate, Hyde Park, on the Hudson River.

No word yet on when this rose will be available for the home market and from what source.

Improving bottom line

More and more of you are buying fixer-uppers or fixing up your current home. As a result, Ace Hardware Corp. says, the home-improvement industry expects sales to increase from the current $135 billion a year to $160 billion a year by decade’s end.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Susan English Staff writer (Wire services contributed to this report.)