From Battle Run to the Rose Fest
If you have driven past Laurel Mills in the spring you may have noticed an explosion of color above the banks of Battle Run, just on the south side of Laurel Mills Road. Those colors are the result of Laurel Mills resident Elizabeth Fannon Swindler’s growing fascination with and love for roses, those thorny flowering bushes that are a staple of romantic occasions.
Elizabeth Swindler’s fascination has turned into a near obsession that now involves more than 150 flowering rose bushes strategically placed around her property, including many grown from clippings from relatives. Her passion led her to become a board member of the Arlington Rose Foundation, one of the nation’s oldest organizations dedicated to the propagation of the flowering rose and one that has been entrusted with the care of some of the nation’s most treasured flowering rose beds in the capital, Washington, D.C.
This weekend (Oct. 1-2), the Arlington Rose Foundation hosts a fourstate rose horticulture, photography and design competition. The Rose Fest, as it is called, offer seminars, a silent auction, photo ops and the opportunity to purchase live roses. It’s at the Hyatt Regency in Fairfax, open 1 to 6 p.m. Saturday and noon to 4 on Sunday. (More information is online at arlingtonrose.org.)
Beth Swindler will be at the Rose Fest, tending to her latest creation — a rose wall that will display hundreds of blooms from the flowering plants entered in the competitions. Look for her there, or just come and wander on your own, soaking up the beauty of the displays and perhaps picking up a few pointers that will help you to tend to your own flowering American beauties.