Fall 2012 ‘Six-Pack’ Rose Show

 2012 Events, Enjoying Roses, SRS Rose Shows  No Responses »
Sep 272012
 

For our meeting last night we had our First Annual Fall ‘Six-Pack’ Rose Show. It was a great success. Everyone who participated had a good time and learned something about roses.

A beautiful six-pack of roses
from Charlie & Terry Klement

First we chowed down on the excellent treats supplied by Kent and Cecilia Zwick, including homemade peach ice cream, (Yumm!) while we admired the roses. There were many gorgeous blooms as you can see in our photos.

This was an informal show, and many of the blooms were in water bottles, wine carafes or wine bottles, beer bottles, and other containers. Carol took advantage of the SRS storage shed at Northland Rosarium and brought her blooms in our standard show vases.

For our next step, Lynn handed out paper and we all became judges for the evening. We selected our favorite standard size rose, miniature rose, and an overall favorite exhibit. The main complaint was that it was so difficult to choose from among the many beautiful entries. Because of the informal nature of the show we did not judge based on the strict rules of exhibition form.

After the votes were tallied our winner were: Ronald Reagan, standard size rose, exhibited by Sharon Askelson; Denver’s Dream, miniature rose exhibited by Gwynne Mee; and Baronne de Rothschild, overall winner exhibited by Kent Zwick.

Click on the pictures below to enlarge them.

Ronald Reagan is a red hybrid tea with  lighter reverse.  It has the classic hybrid tea bloom form with average-size blooms.  It has a mild, sweet fragrance, and blooms continuously throughout the season. Sharon is able to grow her Ronald Reagan in the cold reaches of Montana. Sharon’s Ronald Reagan was a beautiful, velvety, dark red with perfect exhibition form.
Denver’s Dream is a little dream of a miniature rose to which I am very partial. It is a copper-orange with a red reverse, blooms in flushes throughout the season, and is very disease resistant. This time of year with cooler days and nights the color is deeper. Bouquets of this little rose glow copper-orange and look stunning in a brass vase.
Baronne de Rothschild is a hybrid tea, with purply, rose-red, fuchsia / magenta shading on its petals and a silver reverse.  The blooms are large and full, about 5-inches in diameter with about 40 petals per bloom. It has a strong, delicious, fruity fragrance, and it blooms in flushes throughout the season. Kent reports that his Baronne de Rothschild reaches five feet in height. Kent let me bring home the blooms and they are filling my home with fragrance as I write this.

 

Patriot Dream – another of the 911 ‘Remember Me’ roses from Ping Lim

“Henry’s Private Reserve Red” – an unknown rose from Cliff & Sarah Winger’s yard

Sparkle ‘n’ Shine

Robusta

 

 

 Posted by at 3:07 PM

Proper Use of Floral Foam

 Arrangements, Flower Arranging for Everyone  No Responses »
Jun 122012
 

Here’s a good article to add to your rose arranging  tips collection: Best-Kept Secrets of Floral Foam, by Kathy Noble of Austin, TX. (The article is available also in pdf format.)

Ms. Noble writes a great article explaining the correct way to use floral foam (you may know it by the brand name Oasis TM.) As she notes, floral foam “seldom comes with instructions and is easily misused, with disappointing (if not disastrous) results.”

Believe it or not, there are some secrets and tricks to using floral foam that will lengthen the life and enhance the look of your arrangements. These tips will be helpful to the home arranger and show arranger alike. Proper use of floral foam can help arrangements stay together and extend the life of the flowers and filler you use.

For those who would like to enter roses in both the horticulture and arrangement divisions at rose shows, floral foam can help ease the pressure. Master the techniques Ms. Noble explains and you, too, will be able to “build designs the day before a show, and have them look just as fresh the next day.” That’s bound to relieve some of the stress!

 Posted by at 2:23 PM

Miniature Rose Arrangements

 Arrangements, Flower Arranging for Everyone  No Responses »
Jun 112012
 
SRS 2011 Mini Royalty Award

SRS 2011 Mini Royalty Award

For those of you who want to enter an arrangement in the 2012 Spokane Rose Show, or simply want to make something nice to show off your mini roses indoors, here are a couple of articles you may want to take a look at.

The Tri-City Rose Society website (Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick, WA) has an excellent article Rose Arranging 101 – Miniature Rose Arrangements written by by Linda Kerkof, ARS accredited arrangement judge and Tri-City Rose Society member.

Ms. Kerkof succinctly describes the requirements for all arrangements and the all-important aspects of scale and proportion with very helpful illustration. The article is rounded out with several photographs of miniature arrangements from Tri-City’s 2000 and 2001 shows.

Another good article is Creating Arrangements Using Miniature Roses, by Robin Rosenberg, also available as in pdf format . Ms. Rosenberg discusses the versatility of miniature arrangements, the importance of scale, selecting appropriately sized mini roses, and containers.

 Posted by at 2:43 PM

Rose Arrangment Materials

 Arrangements, Cutting & Conditioning Roses, Cutting and Conditioning Roses, Flower Arranging for Everyone  No Responses »
Jun 102012
 

What goes into a good rose arrangement? How do you select the right roses? What sort of line and filler material should you use? What dried materials can you use in arrangements?

While Googling around for good articles on rose arrangements I came upon the Rose Arranger’s Bulletin for Fall 2009. This helpful pdf answers the above questions. It is chock full of color photographs for inspiration and useful information for those who want to know more about rose arranging, specifically about selecting roses, line and filler material, and dried material.

Contents include:

Choosing Roses For Arrangements
By Norma Booty, ARS Arrangement and Horticulture Judge,Director, Region 5, Apple Valley, MN

Line and Filler Material All Arrangers Should Grow
By Kreg Hill

Dried Plant Material In Designs
By Doug Helberg , Chairman National Arrangement Judges Committee

In the article Choosing Roses For Arrangements, Norma Booty discusses how to select roses for arrangements, things one should keep in mind when choosing a container, and helpful hints for the best way to cut and condition roses.

She also gives suggestions for specific roses to use in Modern and Oriental Designs or Traditional Designs. Something I found most intriguing was her comment that the single roses (4 to 8 petals) work better in Modern and Oriental Designs, while roses with more petals are better for Traditional Designs.

In the article Line and Filler Material All Arrangers Should Grow, Kreg Hill tells us just exactly that. I started my garden from scratch – nothing but an anemic lawn surrounded by an empty border – and I have planted many roses, but I am always looking out for more plants to add to my garden that will make suitable line and filler material in arrangements. This article is right on point.

In the article Dried Plant Material In Designs, Doug Helberg discusses various dried plant materials for use in arrangements, what makes them attractive, and how best to use them. He also includes photos of three of his creative arrangements.

If you are interested in creating rose arrangements to enter in our upcoming 2012 Spokane Rose Show (hint, hint) or just for your own enjoyment in your home, you will find something of interest in these articles.

 Posted by at 8:27 PM

Make Your Own Rose Hip Jam

 Enjoying Roses, Recipes  No Responses »
Oct 222011
 

rugosa hips

Greg and I visited Carol last week and she graciously allowed us to pick some of her rugosa rose hips.

Rose hips take time and patience to clean, and when I was done I had two cups of cleaned, seeded rose hips. I hunted around the internet and found several interesting recipes, but one jumped out at me as the easiest and quickest, and one that I could make with the small amount of cleaned rose hips that I had. (It requires only 1 cup of cleaned, seeded rose hips.)

This is a no-cook recipe, the kind that is frequently referred to as freezer jam, because you store it in the freezer if you are not planning to eat it within 3 to 4 weeks.

The rose hip jam I made from this recipe has such a nice sweet/tart flavor and a lovely bright orange-pink color! The consistency is smooth and the flavor is fresh. I heartily recommend this quick and easy recipe. The only time-consuming part is seeding the hips. but you have to remove them. There is a sort of pithy part that comes out with the seeds. I read that the seeds and pith are what itching powder is made from, so you definitely want to remove them!

If you want to use a sugar substitute to make your jam be sure to purchase a pectin that is specially formulated for this. Sure-Jell makes a pectin for low-sugar or no-sugar recipes, in addition to the usual pectin for full sugar.

An additional note: The original recipe doesn’t mention it, but after you place the jam in the containers, you have to let it sit at room temperature for 24 hours to set. It may set more quickly than this. After it sets you can store it in the refrigerator, or freeze it as described.

Enjoy your rose hip jam, and come back to make a comment after you try out the recipe.

~Guinevere

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

  • 1 cup trimmed and seeded rose hips
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 3 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 (1.75 ounce) package powdered fruit pectin (I used Sure-Jell ~G.)
  • 3/4 cup water

Directions

  1. Put the prepared rose hips, water, and lemon juice in a blender; blend until smooth, about 15 seconds. Small bits of rose hips skin are okay. Gradually add the sugar while the blender is running. Blend until sugar is dissolved, about 30 seconds or so.
  2. Stir the pectin into 3/4 cup water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil; boil hard for about 1 minute. Slowly pour into the rose hip mixture; blend for about 30 seconds.
  3. Pour into small containers with lids. Store in the refrigerator. Jam that is not used within a few weeks can be stored in the freezer for up to a year.

Here is the link to the posted recipe on allrecipes.com

 

 Posted by at 4:34 PM

July 2011 Meeting: Steve Nokes Teaches a Hands-on Class in Making Corsages

 2011 Events, Arrangements, Flower Arranging for Everyone, Meetings  1 Response »
Aug 112011
 

Steve Nokes explains the finer points of making a beautiful corsage.

For our July meeting we had a tasty potluck and a hands-on class in making corsages and buttoneers, taught by Steve Nokes, a friend to many of us.

We brought an assortment of flowers, mainly roses, and Steve supplied the rest.

Corsage are fairly straight-forward to create. Corsages and buttoneers can be worn on special occasions, given as gifts, and entered in Rose Shows in the Arrangements class! This is quite a useful skill to learn.

We had a fun night and created some lovely corsages and buttoneers. This was something new for me and I truly enjoyed it.

Some of our efforts are displayed below.

 

Buttoneer

Buttoneer

Corsage

Corsage

Corsage
 Posted by at 6:33 PM