Why I Wrote Four Seasons of Roses

January 17, 2014January 18, 2014 Gaga

Necessity…the mother of invention ~ Plato

Necessity is why I wrote Four Seasons of Roses 2014 Monthly Guide to Rose Care.  Everyone that visits my rose garden tells me that they want roses.  I ask them “what’s standing between you and the object of your desire?” The answer is always the same. “I think roses are too hard to grow.” Then they ask me if I “will teach them how to grow roses?” Let me tell you 3 short stories of how Four Seasons of Roses came to be.

 

Education is the Key to Growing Roses

I was working for the Fine Jewelers Guild, owned by the Zale Corporation in Irving, Texas. Roses are a topic that people like to talk about when they see rose bouquets that I bring to the office or they stop by to see my rose garden. The vice president of the division at the time loved roses and said to me “I will put in a rose garden if you can make it easy.” I said to him “roses are easy, people can be difficult.” That’s when I wrote my first one-page easy instruction sheet for him that I called Rapid-Fire Results with Roses. I said to him, “if you do exactly what this tells you to do you will have a beautiful rose garden.” During this same time I was asked to speak to the Dallas Master Gardeners about roses and the Plano Master Gardener group on growing roses. The brochure Rapid Fire Results with Roses, had to be re-printed and distributed 100’s and 100’s of times and it wasn’t quite sufficient for a beginner’s needs.

 

Rosarian Apprentices

My dear friends and neighbors wanted to put in their own rose gardens.

In planning their new rose garden the first thing we determined was location. Each of us has a special window that we spend more time viewing the landscape, this is a good place to put a rose garden if it has 6-8 hours of sunlight. Next we talked about color palette. One of my rose garden apprentices didn’t care for the traditional red rose and loved oranges, peach and tangerine colored roses so that’s the basis of the rose garden color palette for her garden. Rapid bloom cycle and lots of blooms were important so we chose floribundas. Before I knew it I had three rosarian apprentices with rose gardens. And I was doing the pruning for a local middle school rose garden.  A handy guide Like Four Seasons of Roses would be the perfect hand-out for my apprentice gardeners.

 

Wanda’s Rose Garden

Friends at work have always let me know they also want rose gardens and need instructions on pruning. Here’s the story of my dear friend Wanda who bought a home out in the country and also wanted a rose garden. We started with the basic planning of adding soil amendments because of clay soil conditions and then choosing the plants she wanted based on color, and rating after I explained how the American Rose Society Handbook of Rating Roses rating system works. I explained that I usually do not buy a rose that is rated below 7.0 and for good reason.So you see I know people want to have a rose garden and I wanted to create an educational, easy to follow guide filled with possibilities. I’m committed to getting knowledge into the hands of people that want roses.

Four Seasons of Roses 2014 Monthly Guide to Rose Care is a garden planner that also features my own photography because many of you have asked me to publish the pictures I take since Julia Child

was included in the American Rose Society 2014 calendar. I also included a place to take notes since I always make notes every time I go to the garden. A historical reference helps me grow better roses. Whether you grow roses for photography, landscaping, accessorizing, arranging, collecting or cooking I know you will enjoy my Four Seasons of Roses 2014 Monthly Guide | 2014 Monthly Guide to Rose Care Garden Planner.

 

Wallace Gardens GiveAway: Four Seasons of Roses & Alfalfa Tea

Wallace Gardens is doing a promotional giveaway of Four Seasons of Roses | 2014 Monthly Guide to Rose Care and Alfalfa Tea Soil Conditioner by Annie Haven @GreenSoil of www.manuretea.com. Nancy Wallace, @SassyNancy, is a Garden Artisan and creator of original container gardens from beautiful Wallace Gardens. Nancy lives in the Atlanta area and posts pictures of her original gardening creations on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Here’s the details to win. Thank-you for all of your support of the gardening community Nancy!

Here’s all you have to do for a chance to win. Simply click like on this picture on Pinterest or if you don’t have a Pinterest account click this link for details on her Web site. 

Please check Nancy’s Web site Wallace Gardens and www.facebook.com/WallaceGardens for additional details.

Best of Luck!