Temecula Valley Rose Society

Co-President's Message

May 3 is the date of our Taco Party at Rose Haven. Please join us at the garden around 5pm. A cooked to order taco feast—with all the trimmings awaits you. Bring your own beverage. Plates and table ware will be provided. The cost is $10 per person. Details will be found elsewhere in this newsletter.

The May 21 member meeting will be a visit to a member's garden and to a Fallbrook nursery.

Coming Events

May 3 is the date for the TVRS Taco Party at Rose Haven. Olivere's catering will be providing chicken and beef tacos, Mexican rice, refried beans, cheese quesadilla and assorted sides. Bring your choice of beverage and a hearty appetite as this is an all you care to eat event.

The party will take place from 5 to 7:30pm with food service starting around 5:30. The charge is $10 per person. Plan to join us for a lovely evening at our beautiful rose garden!

Helping Hands

Rose Haven will be hosting a volunteer group of adults who will be performing community service projects at the garden on April 25.

Tasks will include spreading mulch and regrading pathways. This is the second year that Rose Haven has been chosen to receive this assistance, and TVRS is most grateful.

Propagation Workshop

Frank Brines led a class of lively students in the basics of rose propagation up in the gazebo. Each participant left with a potted propagul with high hopes. Given that even professional propagators usually achieve a success rate of only about 70%, Frank asked them to carefully observe their plants and report their results over the coming months. Frank conducted one other propagation workshop this month, that one at Wild Rose Ranch in Corona on March 28.

Propagation class

Rose Haven Garden

Yes, Spring has Sprung and the abundance of blooms in the garden is quite spectacular. Take a look at the photo of the beautiful roses in the picnic area. Amber Queen is the yellow and Home Run is red. The hillside is filled with a rainbow of colorful roses (photo 2), all 500 of them. Many are varieties that you may recognize: Iceberg, Trumpeter, Playboy, to name a few. Along the stairways are nametags so one may identify them all.

Plan to attend our First Bloom/Taco Party on Sunday, May 3rd and you can enjoy the beauty of the garden and dinner with your rose loving friends. (See the special article by Phyllis).

At the end of April the Helping Hands organization will bring their bobcats and equipment to move dirt, fill in eroded places, and spread mulch. Hooray! They did a wonderful job last year and we so much appreciate their efforts in supporting our beautiful garden.

The next garden committee meeting will be Wednesday, April 22nd at 9:15. We will be discussing our projects, improvements, and maintenance. All interested persons are invited to attend.

Picnic area roses

Hillside roses

Grocery Cards Benefit TVRS

Dear Members: I trust that you have made a determined effort to use Stater Bros. Scrip/Gift Cards for your everyday normal purchases. Even in these financially difficult times we all must eat. Purchasing a $100 Scrip Card will let you spend $100 for groceries at Stater Bros. There is no extra expense or donation coming out of your pocket and the Rose Society will get a $6.00 donation for the upkeep of the Garden. Your support is greatly appreciated. Contact Ann Coakes to order Scrip Cards. Tel 951 693-5635.

TVRS Facebook Page

Social media is an excellent way to draw in new members. Please encourage your friends to "Like" the Temecula Valley Rose Society Facebook page. The more people who share our page, the more exposure we get for both TVRS and Rose Haven.

I also encourage you to post your own photos there, of roses, rose gardens, and Rose Haven. Photos get attention!! Visit our Facebook page at Temecula Valley Rose Society.

TEMECULA VALLEY ROSE SOCIETY ANNUAL
ROSE & ARTS FESTIVAL

Member Meeting Program

A light buffet luncheon will be served around noon. Guests are welcome.

April Birthdays & New Members

Little Rose Show

Our Little Rose Show returns for the year will be discussed at our April member meeting. We had consistent participation last year from several faithful members but would love to see broader entries. Plan now to enter to improve your exhibition skills and to allow members to enjoy your roses. Tip: remember to keep foliage intact and to inspect it as carefully as you do the bloom. Even foliage below the water should not be removed. This helps keep your roses upright in the container and meets exhibition requirements. For complete details for the Little Rose Show, click on the link in the blocked calendar section of this newsletter. There will be no show in May as we will be out and about for our member garden tour.

Families in the Garden

Families in the Garden presented 'Bug Day' at Rose Haven Heritage Garden on March 21st. We welcomed 65 children and their parents to do dragon fly crafts, look at bugs, search for bugs, handle worms, and gather nature finds for a collage. It was an amazing program and our committee was fabulous. Please check out our Facebook page at gardening for kids in temecula to see all the pictures.

Our Earth Day program is coming on April 18th. The program starts at 9:30 A.M. Please come and see what all the buzz is about. There will be a tent for shade and chairs.

Dragon fly craft

Close look at bugs

A big ant

Princess Victoria

Garden Chat

Finally, finally it looks like the Matilija Poppy is going to bloom. At least it has assumed its proper height. What a struggle. We have been working at this for three years. We know that it will spread once established, just the sort of plant that area cries for. Several years ago, when I was nursing pots of them through the summer, I noticed that the poppies leaned towards a pot of Rattlesnake Manfreda I had acquired from Frank at the Rose Show. When I rotated the pots, the two plants grew towards each other again. I had been reading some interesting ideas about plant communication, so when I planted the Matilijas at Rose Haven, I planted the Manfreda close by. Now, both of them are large and "fixin' to bloom". The picture only gives an idea of the area, so keep an eye peeled the next few weeks.

Up at the Tree of Life we are between projects and students, so all is out of hand. That sweet alysum we read about in the old stories is spreading everywhere, wild sunflowers as well. (Have to make sure they do not go to seed this time.) There is broccoli trying to bolt, lovely kale, swiss chard, beets and lots of rosemary, curry plant and mint. Studies are showing that even scant amounts of these herbs and greens chopped in a soup, stir fry or salad may enhance our health more than we know, so feel free to pick some. We humans keep eating more and more food to try to get the energy to live our lives and feel happy, but the nutrition may be lacking in our processed foods. Sun and trace amounts of enzymes and vitamins in our gardens may be the reason we are attracted to them in the first place. Since nothing is sprayed and it is totally organic, you can feel safe just picking a little here and there and grazing. The flowers and stems of most of those plants are nicer and more nutritious than the commercial parts we recognize from the store. Tasty.

Another nice thing to notice is that a good percentage of the rose cuttings have rooted. One is even blooming. Watch out Frank, those organic blossoms are delicious. There are many delicious recipes for rose blossoms.

Rose Care FUNdamentals

Continue fertilizing-hopefully ready for the third application-organic I trust. As I always say, organics are much better for your soil and ultimately for your garden and the environment. The soil microbiology is complex and multi-tiered. A healthy garden soil system is teeming with beneficial microbes that inhibit, compete with, and consume disease-causing organisms. This creates a sustainable soil "immune system." In fact, plants grown with organic fertilizers are themselves more resistant to pests and diseases. In addition, when you feed those beneficial organisms, they feed your roses. That's because they are busy breaking down organic matter and releasing mineral nutrients slowly and reliably.

Many gardeners become discouraged when they first experiment with organic treatments while still using chemical fertilizers. It is difficult—in fact, almost impossible—to have it both ways. Chemical fertilizers negatively impact the soil food web by poisoning entire portions of it. The fact is, chemical fertilizers are salts! What gardener hasn't seen what table salt does to a slug or snail? Salts absorb water and dehydrate the soil microbes which are the foundation of the soil nutrient system. Once you've used chemical fertilizers regularly you must keep adding more because the soil microbiology is weakened and unable to do its job of releasing naturally available nutrients to your plants.

Chemical fertilizers are artificial growth stimulants and, in the long run, harm your soil and pollute local waterways because, as dissolved salts, they quickly leach through the soil (becoming unavailable to your plants) and enter the ground water. On the other hand, organic amendments (such as manure, compost, or mulch) break down slowly, generally staying where you put them, and don't contribute to ground water pollution (as long as you prevent run off into drains). In addition, they improve the soil food web, so in the long run you end up using less product.

How about swearing off chemical fertilizers for the rest of the year and starting to use organics? Give it a year. See if your roses don't reward you!

For more ideas, visit TVRS' Rose Haven garden at 30592 Jedediah Smith Rd.,
Temecula, as well as our web site at TemeculaValleyRoseSociety.org/index.shtml. Spread the joy of roses!