SEPTEMBER
Are You Ready for the Show?

September is the month we rose growers in Kentucky have been waiting for. The discipline to water, feed and spray during the summer month's to maintain healthy plants with green leaves is about to pay off. If in August, you pruned away those naked stems and fertilized your rose plants, new growth from the base has emerged, giving you the potential for fewer but still lovely fall blooms.

Continue to routinely feed with a liquid fertilizer through September and spray to control insects and fungal diseases. Do this at least until the first frost. Include a fertilizer that is compatible with your spray materials like my Joy Juice for added benefit.

In cooler weather, rose blooms take longer to develop. As a result, the blooms are larger, have more substance and color and last longer when cut. Reduce the amount of nitrogen by using a fertilizer with a low first number, for example, a numeral 2-15-15. Continuing to feed the roots with the "growth" plant food you were using earlier in the season that has a high first number will likely give long thin stems that will not be able to support the blooms without "drooping". This is particularly true when it rains; the weight of the water in the blooms will cause the stems to bend over ruining the desired garden effect.

Protecting your roses from the elements is essential to exhibiting award-winning blooms. The number one pest is the Cucumber Beetle…a yellowish-green chewing insect with black spots that eats holes in petals when the temperature moderates this time of year. A contact insecticide with low toxicity, Maverik is most effective. Use ¼ teaspoon per gallon of water. Spray it over each bloom every 2 or 3 days with an inexpensive hand held sprayer. Maverik will not spot or damage the bloom and you won't see these pests in your garden if sprayed regularly. Late evening when winds are calm avoids possible blowing of the spray on your person.

Since your blooms need to be "clean and fresh", this can only be accomplished by some type of cover above and around the opening blooms. There are many types of homemade device exhibitors' use, which utilize plastic containers with an opening at the top for air circulation and with the bottom cut-off. Placed over and above an individual bloom and held in place by a stake works well. Cheesecloth or Remay (a very light airy cloth used by growers over plants to prevent frost damage) maybe used effectively as well. It is usually supported in some manner to keep off the bloom itself and to keep winds from blowing them away. A combination of plastic, nylon netting and Remay, with stakes for support can be combined with your own creativity to protect blooms from dew that will spot and blemish otherwise "clean and fresh" blooms.

A moderate to light rain will not damage opening rose blooms. It is essential however, once a rain shower has passed, to firmly hold the stem and base of the bud or bloom and shake out the residual water. Otherwise, the petals get soft, lose substance and stick together. Be careful! Not holding a portion of the flower base with the stem will likely snap off the flower. An opening bud will rot and not open at all if accumulated water is not removed within a few hours.

The thought of entering your roses in a show can be intimidating. It should not be. There are show personnel always on hand in the "grooming room" to assist the novice exhibitor. Just ask and you may get more help than you really wanted! If you are still not comfortable entering your roses, ask someone beforehand if they will help. Or, go early to the show and just watch other exhibitors as they prepare their entries. They won't mind you getting up close to look so long as you don't ask questions and distract them from the job at hand. You will be more confident to exhibit next time.

You want to be a successful exhibitor? Join a rose society… get to know and ask questions of someone who is successful. Know what the judge is looking for. Practice grooming, along with a routine and discipline for growing roses, will bring desired results. Those of us who have had some success in showing and exhibiting have found this to be both exciting and increasingly rewarding, not only for the awards received, but also for others that we have shared our knowledge and expertise who have gone ahead to experience the joys of showing their roses. Lastly, keep in mind "the harder you work at it, the luckier you'll get."