Vancouver Rosarians Fuss & Preen
Monday, June 23, 2014
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| Darlene Sanders - Fussing & preening |
Sunday June 22 the Vancouver Rose Society
held its Vancouver Rose Show at the Floral Hall of VanDusen.
Had any of you reading this gone you would
have found a large hall with rows and rows of perfect rose blooms, single ones
and sprays in the three-sized vases the society provides for exhibitors. These
roses were divided into a myriad of categories including modern shrub roses,
old roses, hybrid teas, species and more you might have never ever heard of.
Besides the specimens there were floral
arrangements, roses in frames and my faves “the floaters”.
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| Rosarians Janet Wood & Dennis Yeomans |
My adventure with roses began badly in 1988
when my Rosemary took me to a meeting (second Tuesday of the month) that was
held at the Floral Hall. I experienced dull talks, projection of bad rose
slides and to make it all worse my chair was awfully hard. I could not
comprehend all the fuss about what seemed to be a silly flower that could not
possibly compete with my pristine hostas.
But slowly I came around. It might have
been the fragrance; it might have been a sight of my first old rose.
But to be honest today I am bonkers over
roses because of one woman, Janet Wood who at the time was the president of the
organization. Wood lives in Southlands. She moved there years ago when in
pursuit of horse manure for her beloved roses (I think she might have lived in West Vancouver). Wood
decided that she and her roses might better be close to the manure.
Wood was the first person to advise us on which roses to place in our garden. Some were easy roses and some were awfully difficult (Rosa ‘Dainty Bess’ and the English Rose Rosa ‘Fair Bianca’ were the difficult ones). Such was Wood’s enthusiasm and always available for tips on pruning, etc that I became a convert. It was then that Rosemary switched to hardy geraniums and let me be with the roses.
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| Brenda Viney - Preening & Fussing |
Wood was the first person to advise us on which roses to place in our garden. Some were easy roses and some were awfully difficult (Rosa ‘Dainty Bess’ and the English Rose Rosa ‘Fair Bianca’ were the difficult ones). Such was Wood’s enthusiasm and always available for tips on pruning, etc that I became a convert. It was then that Rosemary switched to hardy geraniums and let me be with the roses.
Since 1988 I have come to especially love
the scent that the English call myrrh. I have the first myrrh rose, a Scottish
plant called Rosa ‘Splendens’ Somehow in the mid 19th century a rose called
Rosa ‘Belle Isis’ appeared that also had that distinctive scent. In 1968 David
Austin (in Shropshire) crossed Belle Isis with
Dainty Maid and the first English Rose, Constance Spry was the result. Of course it was myrrh
scented.
Because of my dislike of treating a rose, photographically like a tight portrait I have avoided taking pictures of my roses and resorted to scanning them. Through these scans I have become most intimate with the roses in the garden.
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| For preening & fussing |
Of course I am not sure if Q-Tips, nose
scissors, tweezers, nail scissors, Kleenex or pens are have gone to the dogs
yet. But they are valid and necessary items to preen exhibition roses.
I went to this meeting not because I was
going to exhibit any of my roses. I would be scared to do so even though Alister
Browne after his detailed explanation did say, “Don’t forget we are doing this
for fun!”
I went to the meeting because Terry
Martinich, the Chief Organizing judge called me to ask me if I wanted to be a
judge of the Old Roses and also of the photographic exhibit. I wanted to
decline as I do not have the necessary training to be a judge. Martinich told
me I would be under the wing of the other two judges in the Old Rose
classification. They were Alec Globe and Peter Lekkas. The more I thought about
it the more it felt like it could be fun. I said, “Yes.”
I showed up at the Floral Hall at 9:30 the
morning of June 22 with some trepidation. We met in a separate room and
everybody was awfully serious.
And then we (Alex, Peter and I) began our
rounds of the old roses, species roses and English Roses. I was relieved that
not only were we looking for a perfection of bloom but that both my fellow
judges were looking at the displays for important symmetry or asymmetry in how
they were displayed. The leaves were part of the package. Suddenly we were
judging no mere botanicals but works of art. It was fun even though both my
fellow judges kept their smiles to a minimum. I did not catch on in the
beginning when Alec would give me a pen and told me, “You and Peter decide on
this one.” Of course we were judging one of his many entries as Globe has one
of the best collections of Old Roses in his home in White Rock.
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| Martinich, left & the serious judges |
Looking at the specimens and deciding if
the turn of a petal in this direction or that was attractive or not was fun. We
decided to be human (read kind) when we noticed that one of the best specimens
suddenly had a broken bud. The bud had fallen when one of the clerks (only they
can touch or move the vases) had moved it closer for our inspection. We notice
a perfect spray of Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate’ (we found out later that the exhibitor
was Darlene Sanders and that she must have used a fireman’s ladder to cut it
from up a tree as this rose climbs and climbs.) and we three said, “Wow.”
After the judging we were invited for lunch
at the VanDusen Garden Shaughnessy Restaurant. Lunch was hosted by Rosarian
Bill McCarthy who in his garden in Mission
has well over 1000 roses!
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| Two serious judges, Peter Lekkas & Alec Globe |
The best part of the whole day was to sit
with fellow Rosarians and to talk shop without fear of boring anybody.
And I do believe that I could have sat on a
hard chair for hours to look at bad slides of roses and enjoyed myself immensely.
Addendum: The prizes are ribbons or little
vases with an inscription that like the Stanley Cup you get to have at home for
two years (the Rose Show is a biannual event). The glory and the fun is what
counts. Now floaters are easy. The morning of the show, around 6:30 you cut a
few roses and float each one in a nice bowl. You might win or not. It is not
important, like showing off a poodle, you show off your rose. And that’s it.
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| Floaters |
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| Elizabeth Sheppard & her winning floral display |
