By Barbara Todd, President

Our March meeting featured our own Dave Peterson discussing the best soil for growing roses and other vegetation. He covered properties of soil, living soil, soil solutions, management and improvements, and had several informative handouts. One thing that surprised me was that he recommended just covering your soil with compost without the need to dig it in.

At our April meeting, we will have our own PRS members discuss how to exhibit roses for the annual show, including how to prepare them and how to fill out the entry tags. Anyone planning to enter roses in the show should definitely not miss it.

Our April meeting is also our first monthly rose show, including horticulture and arrangement divisions. I encourage you to exhibit whatever is in bloom and also to try your hand at rose arrangements. It can be a fun experience and you may marvel at what you end up creating. Please arrive a little early to give yourself enough time to display your roses, obtain raffle tickets, and find a seat. We plan to begin promptly at 7:30 with announcements, have our presentation, announce the show winners, conduct the raffle, and then on to refreshments and conversation. A lot to get done in two hours, so please be on time.

Our annual rose show is on May 3rd this year, and we have plenty of work to do both before it and on the day of the show. Please consider volunteering as we have many areas we need help with. These include setting up at 10:30 on Saturday May 2 and takedown on Sunday at 5 p.m. Other areas we need help with are filling bottles, covering tables, clerking and many more. It is a great chance to help out and get to know your fellow members. The day of the show, we also need volunteers to “spell” the membership, trophy and raffle tables to give folks a break for lunch or to have a look around at the show.

This year we will be trying something new. We will have a bake sale with cupcakes provided by Sierra Kolter and her friends, and would like those who are able to bake some bars and cookies to augment the cupcakes. In addition, we will be selling rose bouquets alongside the bake sale, so we really need folks to bring in roses and other flowers and buckets to display them in.

It may be a good time to fertilize your roses with Miracle Grow or another fertilizer now in order to have healthy blooms in time for our rose show. Staking your perfect blooms is not a bad idea either, as springtime usually brings lots of windy days; staking will prevent damage to the leaves and blooms.

“I never wanted someone to buy me roses; I wanted someone who’d plant them, knowing that I’d be around when the flowers blossomed.”
― Rachel Wolchin