I said: “HEY! See you next weekend at the rose show!” You replied: “Rose show? Oh, no! I don’t go to rose shows. I’m not interested.”

Not interested? You’re a member of a rose society, and you’re “not interested” in rose shows? I don’t understand how that can be.

Without waxing poetical, there are two simple reasons why you should “bother” with rose shows. You go to rose shows, or take part in them, either to do good for yourself, or to do good to others. Some of you might go for both of those reasons.

I assume that you joined a rose society because you LIKE roses. You probably grow some roses. Perhaps you even grow a great many roses. You enjoy seeing roses, and being around people who share your interest in roses. You do, of course, find the requisite roses and lovers of roses at our monthly meetings, but that opens only a very small door to a very small sampling of the greater world of roses.

At a rose show, usually for free, you will see, smell, touch, and enjoy roses that, in all probability, you will never see in your neighborhood nursery. At a rose show, you will have the opportunity to pick the brains of the folks who GROW those unfamiliar, tantalizingly lovely roses. With the beauty that a rose show rolls out in front of you I can’t see why ANY lover of roses would NOT want to take advantage of the opportunity to take part, or at LEAST to go to a rose show!

What’s that you say? OH! Some of the roses you see at a rose show won’t do well in your garden? I still don’t understand! Why wouldn’t you still want to see and enjoy them, after someone ELSE did the work? I’m an artist of sorts, but I haven’t the talent to paint like Monet. I ENJOY Monet’s work, though, and I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to attend an exhibit of it (especially if there was no charge for the privilege!). Besides, you’ll find, if you ask some questions, that many of the roses you’ll see at a rose show WILL do well for you. With just a little detective work, you’ll quickly learn which is which.

When the doors open on a rose show, I walk into the room hoping to fall in love. Roses seduce me. I’m as vulnerable to their beauty as a lonely cowgirl on Saturday night . . . so I’ve learned to slow down, take a deep breath and make sure I’m not dancing with the wrong beau. When I see a rose that’s new to me, a rose that fills my eye, and makes my heart flutter ? I take myself sternly in hand, and open the entry tag. I look to see who grew it, and where it was grown. I look at the foliage. (A clever exhibitor can clean mildew away, but the disease usually leaves damage. If you look closely, you’ll spot it. And I ASK! Go to the exhibitors, and ask them about the roses they brought. They don’t mind! In fact, they’re pleased to have been asked. (THEY love roses, too, y’know.) “Does this rose mildew?” “Does it rust?” “Will it handle a cool, coastal climate?” I ask, and if I’m lucky, I may find an ‘Excellenz von Schubert,’ or a ‘Vineyard Song,’ roses that flourish in the conditions my garden offers.

If I’m not lucky, and that handsome cowboy wasn’t the fella for me, no harm done. I can still admire the fit of his jeans and the tip of his hat. After all, it didn’t cost me a thing to be there. I’ve done something good for myself by taking a few hours to visit a rose show.

The matter of Doing Unto Others . . .

I grow quite a few roses that you won’t find at the corner nursery. I’ve helped some of you discover some of those roses, and now you grow them, or others like them. (And, by the way, you’ve learned to grow them very well.) Now, I ask that you repay that debt. Look around your garden, the day or so before the next rose show, and look at your roses. Pick some with the longest stem you can. Wash the foliage off with warm water. Bring your roses to the rose show, and enter them so that others can see them, and enjoy them and maybe even fall a little bit in love.

What’s that you say? Your roses won’t WIN? True they might not. So what? How badly, after all, do you need a piece of inexpensive crystal? It’s fun to win. We’d all rather win at whatever games we play than lose at them but at a rose show, you can’t lose.

How’s that? Right, that’s what I said. YOU CAN’T LOSE at this game. You enter your rose, and the WORST thing that can happen is you make an error, and it’s disqualified. That doesn’t happen often (yes, we’ve been DQ’d, through my own error) but even if it should happen to your entry, the rose is still out there on the exhibition table. People who come to see the show still get to see it, and enjoy it. THAT is what’s important. Not the ribbons, not the trophies, but the sharing of something beautiful. There are roses that Clay and I enter at every opportunity. Some of these roses don’t please the judges. They haven’t won ANYTHING, EVER, (and we don’t expect them to) but we continue to show them. We do this, because these roses invariably catch the eye of people who come to see the show. In showing them even when we don’t win, we lose nothing. In sharing them, we gain immeasurably.

So come to a rose show, whether to help, to enter, or simply to enjoy the beauty of the show.

Reprinted from the September 2000 issue of The Ventura Rose, bulletin of the Ventura County Rose Society, Jeri Jennings, Editor.

Who is Ping Lim?

Lynn says it well:

Roses by Ping
By Lynn Schafer – Rambling Roses June 2011

Ping Lim is a rosarian for the twenty-first century, with a background that spans continents and horticultural traditions. Raised in Laos and educated in Taiwan, Ping got his first American job in San Francisco. After years of study and training in every aspect of rose breeding, marketing and production, he became the Rose Research Director for Bailey Nurseries, leading an award winning Oregon-based rose breeding program.

Due to the positive charged of downturn in the economy, his plans changed. He decided to launch his own business, Roses by Ping. He works with Oregon Pride to continue to focus on producing beautiful, disease-resistant, easy care, fragrant roses. He also sells cut flowers through a partnership with a Portland warehouse, along with bare root stock. He also does consulting work, has speaking engagements and writes a column for the Portland China Times. Research to bring a rose to production status takes minimum of five years, but Lim thinks it’s worth every minute. When he’s working with roses, he said, he is stress free and feels like he’s on vacation. “I’m really lucky,” he said. “I hope to create something really beautiful for Oregon and the world,” he said.

In 2002 Bailey Nurseries introduced ‘Love and Peace’™, the result of work by Ping and his mentor, Jerry Twomey. The rose was a success, winning the prestigious All America Rose Selections award. In 2005, Ping Lim won the same award for ‘DayDream’™ and for ‘Rainbow Sorbet’ in 2006, in additional to the award of Northern Ireland, Japan and Belfast Rose competition and entitled 11 Portland Best Roses Awards since 2004. He has also produced Easy Elegance®, a line of twenty-five new, own root roses and 4 of 911 Roses, designed for modern gardens and gardeners. The hardy, floriferous shrubs combine vigor, disease resistance and hardiness with traditional rose virtues including beauty and fragrance. One of the Easy Elegance® roses, Macy’s Pride™, so impressed officials of the celebrated department store that they selected it to symbolize Macy’s centennial anniversary.

If that isn’t enough, he also has written Rose Village in China – TFM Taiwan, A Life with Roses – ARBA annual UK, and Selecting a Rose’s Parents for the Rose Hybridizers Association handbook here in the US.

source: About Ping Lim

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

See them here: Spokane rose pictures

Click here to read the article.

Did you know that Spokane has its own rose society? There is one, and it’s active both locally and online. The objectives of the Spokane Rose Society are to share the love of roses, to educate people that roses are easy to grow in the Inland Northwest, to provide free basic rose care information and share the knowledge of their Consulting Rosarians, to invite neighbors to come together and discuss roses and companion plants, and to provide activities that benefit the community.

Click here for the rest of the article

Thanks Laurie!

Anyway, here’s a video of Phyllis Stevens talking about preparing your roses for the winter. She covers pruning, a bit about diseased leaves, and mounding.

Mounding is pretty much essential if you have grafted roses, not so important if they are on their own roots.

Click the photos for a larger image.

Arrangements Winners:

• Virginia Rockwood won the Royalty award in Arrangements,
• Sharon Askelson the Artist’s Award,
• Sharon also with Oriental,
• Dot Lemon won the Duchess of Arrangements,
• Rosecraft was Dorothy Campbell
• as well as the Keepsake Award.
• Sharon A. won the Mini Keepsake
• and the Mini Royalty,
• AND the Mini Artist’s Award.
• Guinevere Mee also won Mini Artists Award

Some of the arrangements for the 2011 SRS Rose Show

More Arrangements

Smaller 2011 Arrangements

Small arrangements at the show

"Hoop Fest," the rose is "Easy Does it"

"Bowl and Pitcher" arrangment

Dried roses on a fan

Class: Browne's Addition, Historic Distric

What is an Old Garden Rose? To history it is a rose being of a class in existence before the year 1867. Why 1867? Simple. This is the year a rose named “La France” was introduced. La France is considered to the be the first Hybrid Tea. It is the offspring of the Hybrid Perpetual “Madame Victor Verdier” with the Tea rose “Madame Bravy”. The hybridizer was Guillot and what marked La France as being different from other roses was the high centered blossom we associate with Hybrid Teas of today. The name Hybrid Tea in fact comes from a wedding of the classes of the parents of La France. A Hybrid Perpetual and a Tea rose.

Centifolia – Gros Choux de Hollande

Notice I use the words “class of roses” in existence before 1867. This means that even though say a particular Bourbon (a class of Old Garden Rose) was introduced after 1867 it’s still an Old Garden Rose. In fact it’s possible that an Old Garden Rose could be hybridized and introduced to the growing public today.

Here’s the rest: What Is An Old Garden Rose?