President's Message

Hello everyone! Grab a pen and paper as I’ve got tons to cover in this “Message from the Prez”.

BRING SOME OF YOUR ROSES TO EXHIBIT AT THE MAY 2ND MEETING BECAUSE WE ARE HAVING A “LITTLE ROSE SHOW” THAT NIGHT AND ARS JUDGE AND PACIFIC ROSE SOCIETY PRESIDENT, FRAN KAELKE, IS GOING TO BE JUDGING OUR BLOOMS TO GET US READY TO EXHIBIT AT OUR OWN ROSE SHOW ON JUNE 3RD!!

Speaking of May, can you believe it is here already? May is such a lovely month. When I think of May I think of five things: May Baskets, flowers, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day parades, and kids getting out of school. Do you remember making your mothers a “May Basket” at school for Mother’s Day and filling it with violets and dandelions? (I don’t know about you, but I thought I had really outdone myself with that striking purple and yellow mixture in the basket.)

Speaking of beautiful flowers, how about the most beautiful one of all…the rose? I bet practically every RRS member’s rose garden is bursting with activity right now and many new buds are getting ready to pop – if they haven’t already – into luscious, colorful blooms. Isn’t this a great time of year for all us rosarians? A walk through our rose gardens each morning is the highlight of my day, and, as many of you know, is almost always done in my PJs with a cup of coffee in one hand and a pair of pruners in the other. I must admit our roses are looking gorgeous and we are already starting to get some beautiful blooms coming forth from them…Miami Moon, Day Breaker, Bride’s Dream, Barbara Bush, Black Baccara, Mellow Yellow, Mister Lincoln and First Prize.

Wow! I’ve got so many things to share with you, I better get moving! (I always get carried away when it comes to talking about roses.)

For starters, our Field Trip to the Flower Fields and AARS Test Garden in Carlsbad today was AWESOME! Nine of us made the trek – Sharon Couch, Gordon Ballmer, and Raul and Gail Hernandez in Sharon’s vehicle; Carol Wold with Dave and Luana Roth in their vehicle, and Dennis and I bringing up the rear in our vehicle. (We had a blast just getting down there trying to stay together! Ha!) What a great time we all had! I learned so much listening to Raul and Gail and Carol talk about the benefits of composting; Sharon talking about various types of flowers I was not familiar with; Luana and Dave’s terrific tips on photographing flowers; and Gordon’s excellent teaching in the Rose Test Garden. What knowledgeable people we have in our society! I loved being with them and gained so much from their wisdom on a variety of topics. They’re fun to be with, too. We ended our tour of the place shopping at Armstrong’s Garden Center, and then it was off again in our vehicles for delicious pizza at the “Pizza Port” in Carlsbad. Listen to me, RRS members, you really missed out today by not going with us. Let’s make this an annual event for our society. Thank you so much, Gordon, for the wonderful job you did putting this together for our members to enjoy…and you’ve just been appointed to do it next year as well! Ha!

This coming Wednesday evening, my husband and I, and an RRS member or two, will be attending a fundraiser for the rose show in Los Angeles, which was put together by our kids, Chad and Andrea, and Chad’s darling girlfriend, Alexis. These kids have knocked themselves out to help our rose show and “Southern Gardens” project and I am so proud of them. (I think the least I could do is buy their memberships for the year, don’t you?) Check out the details of the fundraiser on our website (www.riversiderose.org).

Also, this coming weekend (April 29-30) is the Riverside Flower Show and Garden Tours event, and, as is the case every year, the Riverside Rose Society’s presence will be felt…especially in the Rose Division which we are in charge of. Please do two things for me, will you? 1.) Call Sharon Couch @ 681-0617 or Eula Moore @ 682-0680 to see if they could use your help in any way with the Show; and 2.) EXHIBIT!! That’s right! Whether it is roses, irises or cacti...join in the fun and exhibit! When it comes to exhibiting roses, the Riverside Flower Show is a terrific “dress rehearsal” for our own Rose Show that follows several weeks later (this year on June 3rd). Now there’s another subject all by itself…the Rose Show!

It’s coming up very quickly…in a little over five weeks! That’s right ladies and gentlemen…mark JUNE 3rd on your calendars and get ready for one beautiful event. If you thought last year’s show was great, you’re going to love this year’s show! We are already starting to get calls and e-mails from exhibitors all over southern California. The show this year, as you know, in addition to being an ARS-sanctioned rose show, is also a charity event, with donations taken at the show (less our expenses) going to purchase roses for our fellow rosarians in the South who lost their homes and gardens last summer to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We’ve even got some of the “Big Guys” to come on board with us…Jackson & Perkins and Nor ‘East have both confirmed they will have information tables set up at the show, and we are waiting to hear from the other two. Local nurseries have been invited and confirmed that they will be there as well. We are getting some incredible press on this…look for our society to be featured in the June issue of the Inland Empire Magazine (coming out in May). The Press Enterprise will also be doing a feature story on our society for a weekend issue close to the time of the Rose Show. We will also have some radio spots on local stations and I will be doing an interview again this year with the local public television station, in addition to another possibly. Press releases are also going out to all of the same southern California newspapers we sent them out to last year.

So what you have here is a great theme for a great cause, lots of interest by the press, and then you factor into the equation the fact that the weather has been unseasonably cool (which has caused the roses to come on late) and you have the makings of a huge show!    

Dennis and I are having a Rose Show meeting at our house on Sunday afternoon, May 7th, from 2:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M., and everyone on the 2006 Rose Show Committee is asked to come. If there are any other RRS members who would like to attend also, please feel free to come! We’d love to have you and would appreciate your input! This will be our last meeting prior to the show and we will be putting the finishing touches on the show at this meeting. It should be lots of fun! (I told you all last year that that show would make it easier for us to do one this year, and it has!) Everyone bring a dish to pass and when the meeting concludes, we’ll share a wonderful meal together!

One more thing! Several RRS members will be manning a table during the Old Riverside Foundation Tour of Vintage Homes at one of the lovely homes on the tour. Lee Stevens has set this up for us to use as a perfect opportunity to promote our June 3rd Rose Show and “Southern Gardens” project which is really starting to pick up steam. Lee will be giving us all a report at our May 2nd meeting, so plan on attending and DON’T FORGET TO BRING YOUR ROSES TO THAT MEETING AS ARS JUDGE FRAN KAELKE WILL BE JUDGING THEM TO HELP US PREPARE FOR EXHIBITING AT OUR OWN SHOW IN JUNE!!

Whew! I am exhausted! That is one long “President’s Message” to be sure. Somewhere in the world someone has probably started a new Third-World country in the time it took me to write my “Message”. Oh well, I warned you in the beginning I had a lot to tell you!

back to the hill (gladly)…Bonnie