Our Heritage

opened for business in 1996 but began in the heart of Tracy Sclar many years earlier. Tracy grew up watching his dad tend their rose garden every weekend and found himself doing that job in his teens and early twenties. When he left home he had a propensity to plant roses in any property available to him and was also in the habit of bringing roses to a certain girl whenever he visited her.

In 1990 Tracy left his accounting job in Silicon Valley to pursue horticultural studies in Oregon. While in and out of school he worked at two different nurseries in the Willamette Valley, both in the field and in the office. In addition, a classmate and friend offered him some land to experiment with propagation techniques during the time he remained in Oregon.

Tracy returned to San Jose in 1993 and continued his hobby of propagating roses. By that time he had discovered the wide variety of heritage roses and began to include them in the gardens of family members and friends. In 1994 he visited that girl mentioned above with the most gorgeous bouquet she'd ever received and Tracy and Janet were married the following year with bouquets made from Tracy's family garden (and for you romantic types, the pot pourri from that first gorgeous bouquet was tossed down the aisle in front of the bride).

In June of 1996 AHR had sufficient inventory to begin selling at local events and farmer's markets. Early in 1998 we put out our internet shingle with the first web page with one rose photo on it. We still remember our first email order, all the way from Pennsylvania!

After years of searching, in November of 2000 we said good-bye to our too-tiny yard in San Jose, packed up our belongings, pets, plants and mist house and moved to 4.4 acres in Hydesville, coastal northern northern California to expand what still remains a just-the-two-of-us business.

In 2006, for our 10th anniversary, we augmented our name to Amity Rose & Garden Nursery, as we had begun offering more than just heritage roses a few years before and also wanted to add some of our other favorite garden perennials.  Now in 2009 we've pretty much returned to only roses at least on the internet, and are thankful we never changed the official DBA Amity Heritage Roses.  Our own-root rose nursery is also offering some bareroot grafted varieties even!  Wonders never cease in a challenging business climate.

From the beginning, and into the future, we remain true to our roots:

Friendship and Friends

Family Legacy and Influence

Love in the Form of Flowers