This year I worried whether we would have roses to exhibit in the Rhode Island Rose Society Rose Show. Mike says I worry about this every year and he’s right. Somehow our roses always bloom in time for the Show. But this year we noticed that some of our roses bloomed earlier than usual. For instance, Yellow Brick Road was all bloomed out before the Rose Show. Other roses we normally exhibit at the show, like Playboy and Hot Cocoa, didn’t bloom until after the Show.
Still, we found plenty of roses to bring to the Rhode Island Rose Society Rose Show, “A Kaleidoscope of Roses,” on June 16. Some roses gave us so many sprays and blooms that we had enough of one variety to enter into several classes.
We grow a lot of sustainable shrub roses and have a collection of Renaissance roses, hybridized by Poulsen Roses from Denmark They include Sophia Renaissance (yellow shrub), Helena Renaissance (light pink) and Clair Renaissance. Clair, a beautiful, many-petalled, light pink shrub, was the only Renaissance rose ready for the show with two really fresh sprays. We entered one of them in the Modern Shrub Class. In addition to being good exhibition roses, Renaissance roses are also great garden roses that produce numerous sprays all season long.
Clair Renaissance – Best Modern Shrub Class
One of our most prolific bloomers this year was Nouvelle France, also known as Party Hardy. Nouvelle France blooms in great clusters and is classified as a Hybrid Kordesii, which meant we could enter one spray in the Classic Shrub class. Since we grow it in our sustainable rose garden and it receives no pesticides, we entered another spray in the Au Naturel Class. Anyone looking for a disease resistant, winter hardy rose (this rose is hardy to Zone 3!), should consider this rose. We have 2 bushes of it planted, one on either side of our flag pole.
Nouvelle France – Best Classic Shrub Class & Best Shrub in Show
Passionate Kisses – Best Floribunda Class
The other very productive bloomer this year is Passionate Kisses. What a rose! It has irridescent, translucent medium-pink flowers that grow in clusters of 5-7 blooms. We must have had at least a dozen sprays blooming all over the rose bush the day before the show. We cut several of these sprays, one of which was chosen Best Floribunda Spray. We also entered a single in the Floribunda Class. We had so many flowers left over that we arranged them in the Floribunda English Box Class. This floribunda rose needs a bit more care than either Nouvelle France or the Renaissance roses, but can be a great addition to a home garden. It grows about 4 feet high and just as wide, so give it enough space if you decide to grow it.
Passionate Kisses – Best Floribunda English Box & Best English Box in Show
Centennial – King of Show
Some of the other roses that were ready for the show was Centennial, an easy to grow grandiflora rose by Ping Lim who gave us the Easy Elegance series. It bloomed just in time to win King of Show. Earth Song, one of my favorite roses, had many sprays, but they had all gone by except for one which we cut and entered in the Grandiflora Spray Class.
Earth Song – Best Grandiflora Spray Class
White Cap – Best A Sea of Roses Class
We have some fun and interesting Challenge classes in our Show. One is called A Sea of Roses, a class where an exhibitor enters any white rose in a deep blue vase provided by the Show Committee. We entered White Cap, a Brownell climber, in this class.
This year we had so many blooms of White Cap that we also entered it in the English Box Class for “other” roses which include Climbing roses. As you can see from the photo, the White Cap blooms had the perfect form, size and substance and looked great against the black background of the English Box.
White Cap – Best English Box Other
We came home from the show tired, but happy. When all was said and done, our garden didn’t disappoint, and we had plenty of roses to enter the show. Now the June Bloom is over and we’re deadheading the garden in anticipation of the August Bloom. All in all, it was a very good June Bloom.
The Rose Journal 