Our guest speaker this month was Simon White, who is now retired after a career of 43 years working for a single company – Peter Beales Roses (now part of Bells Horticultural). After introducing some of the horticultural sundries that he had brought for sale, Simon described the process used to produce roses commercially, based on budding (a form of grafting) onto rootstocks that are then grown on. He illustrated the various types of roses with pictures and advised how best to cultivate them. Clay soils are best for roses, with the addition of organic matter. When planting, the union (where the rose joins the rootstock) should be buried about 5cm below the soil surface – this discourages the rootstock from forming suckers. The problem of ‘rose sickness’ in positions where roses have previously grown can be overcome by burying a cardboard box filled with fresh soil and planting the rose in that; the box provides a temporary barrier that gives the rose time to establish. ‘Climbing’ roses can be encouraged to flower by training the stems horizontally. After his well received talk, there was a lot of interest from our members in the roses and sundries that he had brought for sale.
Cymbidiums carried the day on our competition tables this month; Tony Weavers won the Novices table with his un-named Cymbidium hybrid, and Phil Broom won the Winners table with his Cymbidium Western Rose ‘Pink Lady’.
