Art also teaches a semester course in plant identification. You can't help but feel for his students when his garden becomes their classroom. Not only must they identify dozens of obscure roses, bulbs, and pass-along plants, but also, at any moment, Art might throw them a real stumper. For example: +Laburnocytisus, which is a bizarre combination of two different plants whose tissues grow side by side without exchanging genes. Perfect scores in this particular class are scarcer than sincerity in Hollywood.

photo: A multitude of colors, sizes, and forms shows just how many different roses Art grows.