By Stuart Dalton, President

Welcome to Fall in the Bay Area – usually some nice weather and eventually the change from dry to wet. I’ve been traveling for almost a month and it is a bit hard getting back in gear. Six countries including a brief stopover for less than 24 hours in England where I again visited Kew Gardens. Truly a marvelous garden and the weather matched. That gave me the best rose photos of my month-long trip. I did three types of trips in one. First, 6 days with relatives of Sharon in Croatia who I’d last seen in 1984 (when it was Yugoslavia). Second a fairytale wedding in Dubrovnik where my younger daughter Chris was in the bridal party for a University friend (Pam Hoffman’s Daughter). Third, a major Tauck company tour of Croatia, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia and ending in Venice. Castles, caves, gingerbread and truffle hunts, boutique wineries, world class olive oil manufacture and antique silk making. Plus, history of the region from before the romans to present day.

I came back to a well-watered but slightly unkempt garden. The good news is I’m not seeing much disease. I don’t think I will have much for the Auburn Fall NCNH show (Sept 27-29 as this gets mailed) but I will go to see how they run it and get tips for our May and possibly Fall NCNH shows. I know several PRS members are going and look forward to seeing a nice turnout.

I do have a couple new activities to mention as we get ready for winter pruning. These will be on seasonal pruning and rose care. These include 11, November 21th at the San Mateo County Rose Society, the San Mateo Arboretum January 5th. These will be good opportunities to help promote the Society, I’ve agreed to give a PRS/ Master Gardeners talk at the Fair Oaks Master Gardeners at 11am on the 17th of January.

We will be talking about 2020 officer nominations in October and voting in November. It has been my pleasure to have this second chance as PRS president (my first was in 1988). Now it is time to get a new President and some other new officers. We will also need some help on some other items including getting a team to look at show trophies for our own May show, some need replacing, repairing or retiring.

As we start October you should be remembering things to do in the rose garden now. Stop fertilizing if you have not already, stop deadheading as this and nitrogen fertilizer promote new top growth. Check for roses to remove (shovel prune) and take them out soon and get new amendment in the holes to mellow if you will replant. Look over roses you might like to plant and stay tuned for Jolene’s talk on new roses. Keep rose petals off by pulling them off but don’t remove the nascent hips, so roses know to go dormant.