We have been growing roses for several years and our gardens now boast a grand total approaching 200 roses of every rose class, color, and size. But growing roses doesn't make one prepared to show them any more than adopting a pound puppy makes one a winner at dog shows.
We were novices out of the gate and we had another significant disadvantage: the vagaries of New England weather. The week prior to the show we had it all. Gale force winds with tree limbs sailing through the rose beds, torrential rains with spotty flooding, and temperatures ranging from the 50's to the 90's.
After a particularly nasty lightening, wind, and rain storm Saturday night, we didn't expect to find much worth showing Sunday at the rose show and we weren't pleasantly surprised. We were up and out in the garden by 6:00 AM to cut roses to bring to the show. We went from bed to bed and managed to fill two buckets with blooms that were not anything close to the beauty of the blooms we had hoped to bring.
Armed with a tote bag of tools to prepare our roses for showing (some foam for wedging, tiny scissors, rose clippers, Q-tips, and such), we set up vases and rose bowls with blooms. Fourteen of our roses joined the blooms of other New England regional rose growers on the exhibition tables.
Convinced that we had no chance of winning, we headed off for a relaxing lunch at the Twigs Cafe and some quiet time spent reading and relaxing on the lovely grounds of the Botanical Center. Imagine our pleasure when we returned to the exhibition area to discover 11 of our roses sporting red and blue ribbons and a gift of crystal rosebud candlesticks in recognition of our winnings.
But the best surprise of all was yet to come. The one rose class yet to be decided was the fragrance competition which is determined by votes cast by rose show attendees. When the votes were tallied, we were absolutely thunderstruck to be named winners of the fragrance competition and presented with a gorgeous Waterford vase by conference chairwoman Barbara LeDuc.
We will certainly enter competitions in the future and hope to win other awards, but none will likely ever be as sweet as our first "Best". The winning rose, cut from one of our three Zephirine Drouhins, has perfumed our gardens and yard for the past three weeks and today a fresh flush of blooms opened around both our trellis bench and the mailbox, I'm convinced in honor of the prize.
To showcase some of the roses we entered into the competition and the presentation of the award, I created my very first photograph mosaic for the Mosaic Monday blog roll hosted by Mary Carroll at Little Red House.
Wow congratulations to you both. What a great way to start in any competition. Your Roses are beautiful!
ReplyDeleteCher Sunray Gardens
Congratulations! Your roses are so beautiful! I am partial to the fragrant ones.
ReplyDeleteI am clapping loudly and jumping up for a standing ovation... CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!! With over 200 hundred different roses growing for all these years you certainly were in the same class or a class above...so well deserved...perhaps some year some of us can come to the competition and cheer you on...love Mass and have relatives in Littleton...
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on winning the category for fragrance roses. Love the mosaic you created for your first Mosaic Monday.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! What a fantastic effort. Now when you enter next time ... with perfect roses not hammered by rain or wind ... you'll sweep the floor with your entries. To me, your roses all look like deserving winners.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! And even more special that you weren't expecting it, and especially pleasing that you use organic methods to grow your gorgeous roses. I have a Zephirine Drouhin, and I do love it for its fragrance. Unfortunately, it was hit hard by black spot this spring, and I had to cut it far back. It is recovering nicely. I plan to try your anti-black spot routine.
ReplyDeleteOkay, our heads are swelling so much we're going to need neck braces! Thanks everyone, for your wonderful comments. Deb, I hope you lick the blackspot. We were hard hit this year too, since we didn't spray with the trichoderma right off the back and (DUMB move on our part), planted roses in our beds that we didn't quarantine first. Fortunately, we contained it, but not without some serious nailbiting!
ReplyDeleteBernie, you can be our cheerleader next time LOL.
Donna, if you are ever visiting you must be in touch and come visit! We are a stone's throw from Littleton, which is just over the line from the SECOND BEST ice cream farm in the state. (My husband is partial to Hodgie's, mostly because it's only 5 minutes away, but Kimball's has the BEST as far as I'm concerned.) It would be a treat to meet you. ;) And thanks for the standing O!
Congratulations! How exciting! 'Zephirine Drouhin' grows consistently well for me here on Long Island, I have two over an arbor that I actually moved from a former home ( moved the arbor and roses) couldn't bare to part with them! They have a lovely fresh lemony-rose scent.
ReplyDeleteI have been using Neem pretty successfully against blackspot, but will read your blackspot post!
glimpseofglory-karen.blogspot.com/
okay, sorry for the second comment but I read your Blackspot post and was wondering if you have ever noticed the cracked corn attracting voles or mice? I live in a country like setting and there is so much wild life here, I would think corn would attract "critters".
ReplyDeleteThanks!
glimpsesofglory-karen.blogspot.com/
Congratulations! How exciting! I'm glad you left to enjoy lunch instead of staying there, biting your nails! Ah, the sweet smell of - victory!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations from me too! I guess mildew didn't stop you from winning :). Your roses must be very special.
ReplyDeleteThat is so exciting. The first time my 13 year old son entered his cactus in the Philadelphia Flower Show he won a blue ribbon in a cactus class. Longtime participants were not pleased. I once entered a hellebore and vowed never again after I spent an hour clipping microscopic brown edges off the leaves with a nail clipper at the insistence of the passer.
ReplyDeleteWow!!! Congratulation on your first award! What a great achievement and how exciting! I'm very pleased for you two :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! You deserve to feel really proud of yourselves.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations from me also,Zephirine Drouhins does have a terrific fragrance, and no thorns.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! I have heard that Zephirine Drouhins can take some shade, what do you think? Also, do they have nice hips in the fall?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Cindy from http://enclosuretakerefuge.wordpress.com
Zowie you guys did great!! OMG what a thrill it must have been-- And to my mind scent is about 85% of how I select roses to grow in my garden, and it's just so impressive that you won that huge award for fragrance too.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have the book Otherwise Normal People, about gardeners who grow competition roses-- a really fun read.
Again, congratulations!
Congrats on your ribbons! A big honor indeed. I just planted ZD this spring and I have to agree with the judges. I love its old fashioned fragrance.
ReplyDeleteThanks to all for posting - we are finally starting to settle back down to earth!
ReplyDeleteKaren: The only time the corn is a problem with mice or voles is while it's in the bag. We keep it in a Rubbermaid tub. ;) However, since the voles are so destructive to the gardens, we live a bit out as bait and while the voles are snacking, our little neurologically impaired Cavalier (the one who thinks he's a cat) catches them. Sometimes they are too fast for him - when he's having an off day, he's been known to chase them into the swimming pool and jump in after them. He can swim faster and he has no trouble getting them. (Gross, I know... but he keeps the rodent population in check.)
Holley, Masha, Christine - thanks for dropping by to offer congrats. We appreciate all the good wishes!
Ditto to Carolyn, Ronnie, and Christine.
Alistair, yes, that is the second best thing about Zephirine. We have one of them on a trellis bench. You can sit there and know heaven.
Cindy, yes they can take partial shade. We have one in full, daylong sun and two in partial shade. The hips are pretty unspectacular - nothing like the rugosas. But if I had to choose hips or fragrance, on this rose, I'll take the fragrance. ;)
Linnie, I don't know the book but I will by the end of the evening!
Thanks again, everyone! Your congrats and best wishes mean more than you know!
Tina, thanks for dropping by to offer congrats. Wait until she has a chance to grow and you get a substantial vine.... she will perfume the entire yard!
ReplyDeleteHow fun....while you're off enjoying lunch, your roses are winning you prizes......can it get any better? I have never heard of Zephirine, but now that I have I'm going to be on the lookout for it. Here in Vancouver it seems tough to get enough sunshine to do well with the roses, but I keep trying. If you have time, could you tell me which is the rose pictured in the rose mosaic that is right over your heads.....roundish pinkie lavender flower? Thanks. Now I'm going to read about the black spot treatment....!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, both of you, what a wonderful surprise to win the most scented category, after all, what is a rose without scent!! You have done really well and can be justifiably proud, well done!
ReplyDeleteThanks gardenmad and Pauline for stopping by to congratulate us. That rose is a hybrid tea, Memorial Day, and it has a superlative fragrance (for a hybrid tea). I had been hoping that bloom would be open for the show. It was a gorgeous Monday Morning Queen LOL. It's a beautiful mauve pink with dark green foliage.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations!! I am so happy for you. How exciting it must have been.I have had my eye on getting a Zephirine Drouhins rose. You have convinced me now. LOL!
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