September meeting / rose display

The annual September rose display was held at our meeting on the evening of the 26th.  There was a good crowd of members as well as roses in the informal and intramural rose show, complete with experienced judges and prizes / awards.  Here's some of the growers in attendance and their beautiful roses:

Wes      Nadine    Laveryne

Bill        Bernie          Fred

Joyce    Bill    Laveryne    Bernie   Fred

Mike G.     Nadine    Laveryne    Bernie
 Joyce    Bill    Fred 

Shanthi      Pilane

Maryann       Wes

Jurassic Garden !

Some new photos of our time at the Marion County Fair just came in.  I added two of them to the posting of July 12th under the title "County Fair", so don't forget to check them out.  Two other photos, however, warrant some closer and immediate inspection.  First, let's state some facts about the president of our Rose Society:

• Maryann has a HUGE back yard
• She is a beekeeper
• She grows a lot of roses

Now, let's inspect the photos:

Maryann with one of
her bees ?

Maryann with a SINGLE
stem of roses

Draw your own conclusions, but there could be something "Jurassic" going on in her back yard  -- you know, where things grow LARGE.  But then, I recall that there's a rose bush named 'Sally Holmes' growing back there.  Maybe a quick search of Google Images for the "Sally Holmes rose" might allay some of our suspicions.

Update of June 27, 2013:  Maryann had an open garden yesterday, and we were able to get a photo of her with 'Sally Holmes'.  Mike H is keeping a safe distance from this all-devouring rose bush.

June 26, 2013

An afternoon at St. Timothy's

Our second open garden of the season was at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church here in Salem, where SRS member Mike G is the volunteer caretaker of a very handsome collection of roses.  We were invited over to bask in the company of the roses as well as to attempt to identify some of the unknowns, which would account for the studious expressions in a couple of the photos.  Our hosts for the day were Mike G and his wife Joyce, who are seen in the first photo.  Joyce is holding the seedling rose named 'Miss C' (named for her), and grown from seed by Mike.  From here we go outdoors to see the beautiful roses, starting with the second photo -- Joyce (there were 2 Joyces and 3 Mikes here today!) and her husband Wes are in the background.

Photo #1

Photo #2

The third photo has Susan and her husband Bill to the left and Maryann to the right in the process of identifying roses and naming names!  In the next photo are Maryann and Mike G, with Mike reaching down to one of the roses that he planted and is now caring for -- the rose is a dark red floribunda named 'Oh My !' (yes, the exclamation mark is part of the rose's name).

Photo #3

Photo #4

At long last, the fifth photo shows the 3 Mikes, namely, left to right:  Mike C, Mike G, Mike H.  There's also a Fred, and he's in the background.  The sixth photo shows John and Mike G to the left.  John takes care of all plantings at St. Timothy's except for the roses, which are maintained beautifully by Mike.  To the right are Fred and Maryann.

Photo #5

Photo #6

It's open garden season

I'm a little late in posting photos of the first open garden of this growing season.  It was very late Spring, June 10 to be exact, and the roses over at Mike C's place were looking good:

Mary and Bernie

Neighbors Craig and Martha
with Mike H

What's this ?

It's a growth of some kind, but what exactly is it ?  Maybe just a shameless attempt by Mike to get some traffic over at his blog.  Click on the following highlighted link to transfer over to his blog, and then read the post of August 2, 2012 titled "A garden surprise !" -- there will be more photos.  When you're finished over there, do come back and finish reading THIS blog.  Here's the link:  Mike's Blog

County Fair

The Salem Rose Society had a grand presence today at the Marion County Fair here in Salem.  Our home-grown roses really brightened up the Fair's floral display, as you will see in the photos below.  The Fair continues through Sunday, July 15, so the roses will have a lengthy exposure.  As a result, we might be able to impress and recruit some new members.  Remember, you may click on the photos to enlarge them.

The floral display area

Pilane and Fred at
the SRS tables

Pilane checking a rose ID

Most impressive bouquet !

Update of July 20, 2012:    Thank you, Joyce, for sending along the photos that you took on the 15th -- they show that the roses were still looking GREAT !

Wes "talking roses" with
Fair attendees

Maryann wins 2 awards.
Congratulations Maryann !

Update of August 25, 2012:   Some more photos just got delivered to me via internet snail mail.  Below are some of our very finest Rose Society members tending our rose display at the Fair.  We really have a nice banner, don't we?  And some very nice roses!

Bill and Susan

Joyce and Wes

Overnight garden visitor

A really impressive dragonfly perched itself on one of my rose bushes yesterday evening.    I didn't think to take a photograph of it at the time, but when it was in the same spot this morning I couldn't resist.  Any insect that eats mosquitos is very appreciated in the garden, so here is my photographic salute to this welcome visitor.  After taking the first photo, I used a ruler to get a rough measurement of it, and the ruler's proximity caused the dragonfly to scoot up the rose bloom about half an inch.  So, this beautiful insect measures in at a wingspan of three inches.

Displaying roses

Our scheduled meeting this month was a work-shop on displaying roses.  Considering that this is May 23rd in the central Willamette valley, the number and quality of the roses was impressive.  We can share with you the visuals, but the fragrance we can't.  Even a couple of neighbors stopped by for an enjoyable evening.

Neighbors Martha and Craig with Mary

Shanthi at work

Beautiful roses

Admiring the display

New TRANSLATION tab

I've noticed that sometimes our blog attracts readers from outside the USA.  To be more accommodating to them, I have added a translation tab at the top of this blog.  Try it out, and welcome to everyone !

More garden visitors

Unless you're growing certain species roses (like R. glauca), you probably won't be encountering the tiny rose-gall wasps shown in my previous post.  The galls might sap a little energy from a rose bush, but the diminutive wasps are kind of fun to have around.  Our next guest, however, is definitely welcome in our rose gardens.  If you see "soldier beetles" among your roses, treat them with kindness and respect -- they are preying upon aphids.  Soldier beetles fly around like larger versions of ladybug beetles.

Here's one that I just saw in my garden.  Check them out on Wikipedia; additional photos can be found on Google Images.

Garden visitors

You might recall my posting of December 12, 2011 titled "I hope they're friendly wasps".  Well, patience has paid off, and at least one of the little rose-gall wasps has emerged.  I was surprised at how small the little guy was, not any bigger than a medium sized ant.  A quick review of the literature re-affirmed their small size -- 3 to 4 millimeters.  Here's some photos that I took today; click on the photos to enlarge them.

Update of July 4, 2012:     Today was house-cleaning day --  I removed two old rose-galls from my Rosa glauca.  About half a dozen new ones are currently being formed, and I'll probably remove all but two later on to repeat the cycle for next year.  The old galls were surprisingly tough and solid, and required the use of my rose pruners to slice them open.  Here's a photo of one of them:

Spring Snow

I thought that I would document the fact that we had snow in the valley even after the "calendar" beginning of Spring.  There was an accumulation of 3 inches of snow in my back yard.   In future years, we can reminisce about it and compare future weather events to this one.  Below are two photos of my big rose bed, one from the morning of March 22 and the other from the afternoon of March 23.   It should be said that we didn't have any rain to melt away the snow; rather, the 23rd turned out to be a warm and sunny day.  Notice the receding snow protected by the shade of the house.

Morning of March 22

Afternoon of March 23

If anyone with blogging aspirations is interested in how to place photos side-by-side, whether you are an SRS member or anyone else who has chanced upon this blog, you are welcome to view my "test" blog by clicking on this link:  http://mikestest-salem.blogspot.com/

Silverton Seedy Saturday

We definitely had a good time over in Silverton today at the Seedy Saturday event at the Grange Hall.  Various groups were sharing their knowledge and a variety of seeds with a friendly crowd of visitors.  I gave away hips from my 'Queen Elizabeth' roses.  Maryann gave away rose hips from a number of roses that she grows:  'About Face', 'Baby Fauraux', 'Berries n Cream',  'Crimson Cascade', 'Della Balfour', 'Julia Child', 'Lichfield Angel' and 'New Zealand'.  Joyce and Wes from the SRS were also there to provide great support.  Good luck to those adventurous people who received our  rose hips  -- don't forget to send us pictures of your blooms.  Your new  rose plants will each be one-of-a-kind, because seed from non-species roses will not come "true", even if the blooms were open or self pollinated, which makes for an interesting and fun experiment !

Here's some photos from the event:

Photo # 1  --  On the left are two visitors.  We fortunately had them outnumbered;  from left to right are Joyce, Wes, Maryann and Mike.

Photo # 2 --  Maryann with new friend Jo, a promising rose grower.

Photo # 3 -- Maryann with old friends Amanda and family.  The above guests and Amanda and each of her children (and lots of other folks) selected their very own rose hips.  We wish them success in growing their new rose plants.

Spraying your roses -- is this a "solution" ?

This might be of interest to you rose wranglers out there.   I've begun using 2 products, mixed together in one "solution", to spray my roses.  The products are GreenCure (also marketed as MilStop) and Miracle-Gro Bloom Booster.  I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to research the products on the web.  Around here, I've found Miracle-Gro Bloom Booster in 15-30-15 concentration and in 10-52-10 concentration (available at 13th Street Nursery).   I prefer the 10-52-10 concentration, because phosphorus is what I want.  It really takes a while for soil to warm up here in the Northwest, and the literature I've read indicates that phosphorus uptake by plants (roses) is pretty limited at soil temperatures below 55 degrees.   After seeing my roses at different times last year, Maryann suggested that maybe a phosphorus deficiency was causing the foliage spotting on my roses.  I had been using MilStop (aka GreenCure) throughout the last 2 growing seasons, but our cold soil was preventing it from being the absolute one-stop spray mix for the Northwest.

MilStop/GreenCure is pretty good stuff.  It is 85 percent potassium bicarbonate and 15 percent "other ingredients'', which I presume is the built in spreader/sticker -- surfactants.  Although the manufacturer suggests that we shouldn't mix anything else with their product, I do it anyway.  The "solution" then will be 1 tablespoon of GreenCure plus one tablespoon of Miracle-Gro 10-52-10 in a one gallon sprayer.  Both products are very soluble in cold water.  Since potassium bicarbonate is 39 percent potassium, then MilStop/GreenCure would be .85 x .39 = 33 percent potassium.  Add it to the 10-52-10 and we get 10-52-43 as the final NPK values.   I started using the COMBINED mixture (once per week) during the second half of last year's growing season with very favorable results.  I applied it even on hot days, and there was no leaf burn.  This year, I've already started spraying in February using the combined mixture.  I'll keep you posted about my cold-season results.   Bottom line:  roses really love foliar feeding, and this mixture is super food.  And, compared to other rose sprays out there, this mixture should rank extremely low on the toxicity scale.

Update of May 17, 2012:     I'm still very pleased with the above mixture.  However, my roses that are last in line to get morning sun are still being plagued by some weird spotting.  Besides the reduced sun exposure, this could be due to the fact that the affected rose bushes are seedlings, and that their roots haven't kept pace with above-ground cane growth.  However, the seedlings that get early sun are doing VERY well.  Looking at the photos below, this would include those rose bushes in full sun by around 8:30 am.     ROSE ADVISORY:  Plant your roses where they will be in full sun by 8:30 am.

Here's a photo of the weird spotting as seen today:

And here's a time-series of photos from this morning.  The shade is provided courtesy of the trees to the east of the rose bed (behind the shed) and courtesy of the shed itself.

8:40 am

9:20 am

9:40 am

9:55 am