It's All About the Roses! 

the selection, planting, care and maintenance  - presented by Master Gardener Ed Bourassa (April 2015)

Ed Bourassa, a Master Gardener in our midst, with years and years of experience and nursery management, presented a class on the selection, planting, care and maintenance of Roses.  Each of us found it very informative and even those in the know learned something new and/or another perspective. He covered everything from selecting your rose bush and resources of nurseries etc, to selecting the location to plant your new bush, to lots of tips on how to prune it BEFORE planting, how to prepare the soil and what size hole to dig and why, to watering, fertilizing, and enjoying your roses.  He then suffered through a long Q & A but showed great patience and perseverance with us.  Thank you Ed!

We followed up with a light lunch of salad and sandwiches and a surprise birthday cake for our presenter, Ed, baked and frosted  by Dee Swenson. Thanks Dee!

Who knew we were to prune our bushes back so much so that they would grow bigger and better!  Can we take our roses from this,...to the photo below!??

Ed also had a good number of handouts and mentioned some good and reliable resources for us to check out.  We hope to be posting those here as well.  Checkback.  If not, ask and we will find them to share with you.

At this first meeting we had twelve attending with others who responded they would have liked to have come but were otherwise detained.  While eating our light lunch we discussed when and how often we would like to meet and the types of things we wanted to do and learn.  We discussed topics for classes.  

Lots of "little" gifts were also given out - everything from seed packets, to gardening gloves, small plants and planting bulbs.  Ed kindly offered up the rose bush he used as an example in his presentation - we drew names to see who received it. After a number of draws, it was awarded to Nila - let's hope she can keep it alive and apply what she learned in the class.

BTW:  the camera captured this behind the scenes view!  Christina chasing ? around the kitchen with a broom?  Explain Christina!

               

Graciously, Ed Bourassa accepted our invitation to do another presentation - this time on ..what else when living in the North West. ...the care and maintenance of ...you guessed it...Rhododendrons!  Linda Rees graciously offered her Rhododendrons to be used as an example while Ed teaches us.  Hope to see you in her yard - Rain or Shine - umbrellas work people!  Afterall, it is the northwest!

Be sure to "stop and smell the roses" this week - let's all take time to slow down and enjoy life and the beauty in nature that surrounds us all and the good in the humans who give of their time and effort that we might learn more.

Can any of you recall the name of the roses that Ed discussed at this class? Comment here if you do.


Happy Gardening, 

        yours truly, Green Thumbs