Everything's Coming Up Roses

First off, announcing our first shipment of gorgeous roses for this season: Wednesday, April 15th!!!!!!!

Today officially starts "rose season" at the nursery. The first spring class on pruning and care is at 11am, and I am looking forward to the enthusiasm that will follow. I used to be, not so long ago in the grand scheme of things, a rose novice. Growing up in Florida, having a rose garden was not something that most people thought about. Except my Mother-In-Law, Sharon. One weekend, when I was about 20 or so, and living back at home while Robert was stationed overseas with the Coast Guard, she announced that she wanted to put in a rose garden. A formal affair, with hybrid teas (I thought, at the time, that she was referring to the afternoon luncheons we would be having) that would scent the entire area around the front portico leading up to their home. Their house was situated on a grand corner lot in Coral Gables, a neighborhood that was filled with large homes, and beautiful well manicured and cared for gardens. She already had an extremely large orchid area in the back of the property, bromeliad beds that tumbled out into the lawn, and enough flowers, ferns and fauna to fill my yard here in Fallon 10 times over. But she wanted a rose garden, and that is what we planted. The finished garden was strikingly beautiful and it did achieve her goal, a vase filled with long stemmed beauties graced the front entry table most days.

Fast forward 20 years or so, I am now living in Fallon, and enjoying another "rose experts" passion. Sooz Ellis and I worked together in an office for many years, and during that time her desk was always filled with the most incredible blooms during the high summer season. The heavy scent of old growth roses, the incredible beauty of her hybrid tea's and some days it was almost overpowering, but always in a good way. I had been growing a few roses of my own over the years. I always had a Mr. Lincoln, Tropicana and Queen Elizabeth in most of our homes around the country, but it wasn't until I caught "the rose bug" from Sooz that my passion for roses was re-ignited. When we built our house on Silver Circle, one of the first items to go in was a rose garden. With Sooz's help, we planned out the beds, figured out all the right amendments and organics were added and roses were soon filling my home also. Since that time, 12 years ago, I have added a rose or two every year and I don't see it ending anytime soon. I love roses! Any kind, any color, any scent....I can't get enough of their quiet beauty.

So today, we will gather in the back rose garden and I will do my darnedest to pass on my passion for roses to anyone attending our class. I have not found a flower that is more perfectly suited- and gives you more bang for your buck - here in Fallon than roses.

Another plus in our column of wonderful things happening at the nursery this spring, Sooz Ellis has agreed to be our "Rosarian" this season. After our large shipment comes in you will find her most weekends, back in the rose garden, spreading her passion for roses to all. Welcome to our garden Sooz, we can't wait!

Hope to see you at the class, Susan