National/State Rose Championships

The national / state championships was slightly different than our normal state champs and for me personally, this was my first nationals.

For me personally who has only being growing roses for almost three years and showing for about two years, I think I did alright.

Graham and Janet Wright from NSW flew all there lovely roses over last Friday and benched them on Saturday. They cleaned up all the national divisions and I ran fourth to them in the open division and was 35 points behind them. I think the difference between them and me at the time was they had the weather on there side plus they have three times more rose bushes than I have. Boy do I need extra property....missus won't let me get rid of the pool to put more bushes in........darn!

BUT!....they didn't have it all there way.....I took out two major championships.....

So my results for the weekend were :-

Two major championships....... First floral art and Second Bowl of roses.....
and in the other divisions, i got
12 firsts
8 seconds
6 thirds

I like to thank all those people who put some posts up that helped me and also Bruce T. Also Bruce , if you read this , Richard Walsh says hello and I am so jealous of that guy....he has 827 roses to choose from compared to my 47...oh for a lotto life...lol

Now one for Rosalie.........which one of the below won Champion Floral Art?.....

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umm , dunno but my personal preference is for pic.#2.
Congratulations on your results , you must feel really chuffed . Have you any pix from the show ?
The weather was about as diabolical as it could be .... Friday it was 30 + something here and I got nasty sunburn while watching the kids sports carnival and then Saturday we went out fishing to take advantage of the fine weather and it was cold and grey and blowy and then it rained .
Don't know what things were like up in Perth but I thought of you having a nailbiting time while protecting your special blooms.

cheers. Rosalie.

That one won first place Ros, but the Champion went to No 3.......its a pity that the weather can put out your blooming timing......I have about 200+ buds ready to break open in the next day or so...its like this show came midway between blooms......but I was told a so call secret by one of the interstate judges....most of the top shower's have four of every bush so that they have flowers all the time.....

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and the champion bowl of roses. This was a last minute thought......the roses were picked at 1130pm on Friday night under a torchlight......made up the bowl and benched 7am the next morning...the things we do....
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Well done John

Well done!!! I think you did better than "alright" !!


Over here our Ag Show was 1 week too early for the majority of roses. The number of roses at perfection a week later was substantial.


(And I'm still that people fly their roses over.... O.O There's obviously a whole world out there I know nothing about...!!)

John they are all wonderful
the one that got me is the one in the lantern, I would never have thought of doing that.

Carole ...the theme was set as "rose within a glass"...it had me baffle for awhile , till I walked into Thingz and there it was....$25 later I walked out with the lantern....

They are beautiful arrangements , would you tell me what the pink ones are?

Well done all the arrangements are gorgeous.

Thanks John,
It was worth the $25 as it looked fantastic
I am probably the worlds worst flower arranger but at least I have a go but only for at home. If there was a ribbon for last in a show I would get it. I am just not artistic at all. I wish I was.

As a rule Carole, I'm not either.....the rose judge keeps writing me these little love notes on how to improve the display and puts said information under my card for me to read.......I just wish I could find a book that his made for rose floral art .......

Happy roses wrote:
They are beautiful arrangements , would you tell me what the pink ones are?

The pink ones come from a rescue plant that I got from a demolition site. Unfortunately there was no card to attach. Can only use it for floral art till I can get a name for it....

You are too kind John.
We have just had a HUGE hail storm here with over an inch of very heavy rain. So I dont know what damage has been done to our plants but if I can find some that have servived I will do an arrangement just for you with whatever I can find without buying anything and you can judge.
Please dont say you havn't been warned

No problems Carole - just use the theme "Twister" for your arrangement.

It took me a second to cotton on Wendy

We had someone suggest a "best failure" class in the Cookery section at the Show this year. I'm sure the same principle could be applied in the Horticulture section.

So " A sunken sponge"
"Droopy, dying flower with twig"


Dont forget the veg section

"Best Cabbage leaf as voted by a White Cabbage Moth" ?

Seriously though, I wish more people would enter the Decorative section. The displays always look amazing. I would but I kind of get caught up with the cooking. And there there is the whole "being a Responsible Show Secretary" thing.

There you go Carole...your theme "Twister" for your art seems good....just need to go outside and get some inspiration for it......

OK I will go out in the morning and see what I can find, then try and make the flowers look like something.
So "Twister " it is.

Congratulations John, very well done. Exhibiting roses is very time consuming and everything has to be done to get the best blooms right on the day. Unfortunatly it is necessary to use everything in the arsenal to win. This means sprays for fungus as well as pestercides for nothing is allowed to spoil those blooms.

The white oil saga could have worked to your advantage as I think there was time to grow new leaves.

Richard and I help one and other where we can. One of the most satisfying projects for me is to propagate one of his seedlings for charity. The buds were sent to me last week of June for budding and they are just starting to bloom now. That's four months from budding to blooms propagated totally out of season.

John, I have been looking through plants that Kordes grow. A lot of there cut roses/flowers have that 'flat' head in thier breeding. Mercedes and Gabrielle come to mind. I think the pink could be one of them

I have never heard of these two roses David...are they specific to the eastern seaboard/

No John, they are cutflower varieties of Kordes. Another is 'Frisco'. I will add more as I think/lookup some others.