Growing a champion rose bloom is all about timing
So close but it’s tough being pick of the bunch
So, another rose showing season is done and dusted, at least for us it is. Those who are prepared to travel can take part in autumn shows, but growing decent roses up here is difficult enough in spring. In the autumn it takes more commitment than we can muster.
The stars didn’t align this year so Raewyn stayed home while I sought household name status, starting with the national show, this time hosted by Auckland.
Having found the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall, with bugger all help from the locals — a bloke who works at a gas station in Dominion Rd, a couple of hundred metres from the hall, had to scroll through his phone to find it and even then was pretty vague regarding where it might be — I was once again struck by the same realisation that dawns every year. A lot of those who exhibit with consistent success are old. Really old. And cunning.
Perhaps they cheat. Who knows? They might have glasshouses tucked away out of sight somewhere. Anyway, my paltry contribution wasn’t especially flash, and, as expected, didn’t quite light up the room.
Truth be told, we got our timing wrong, again. The roses are flowering earlier every year, thanks no doubt to climate change. I delayed pruning this year but that didn’t seem to make much difference. Most had finished their first flush by the time I started looking for contenders, while a few hadn’t started. They can be contrary little sods.
Still, it was a good couple of days. I learned a good deal, as I always do, from people who know much more than I do, and I did win a very good raffle of garden stuff.
There is a technique to winning raffles, not fail safe but getting close. First you buy a goodly number of tickets, then you quietly spread the word that it has closed. Worked in Hamilton a couple of years ago too.
Headed home, with the large empty cardboard box that I had taken for the trophies, in time to pick again and head for Te Awamutu last weekend. When I say pick again, I mean plucking the two specimens that were anywhere near the required standard. One was fully open, the other a floribunda stem with seven blooms.
Taking roses to Te Awamutu is a bit like taking coals to Newcastle, but I was not without some expectations. It would be a much smaller show than Auckland, and the Waikato/Bay of Plenty had been having some shocking weather. Matamata had cancelled its show earlier in the month because of frost damage suffered in October.
It was indeed quite a small show, but one or two of the best exhibitors around were there. I beat one of them to win with the fully open
bloom and was second behind another with the stem.
Both were considered for champion status; the former was quickly rejected, which wasn’t surprising, but the latter was among the final three.
The judges agreed that it was the pick of the remaining bunch. I, being the steward, picked up the vase to place it where the champions had to go, thinking quietly to myself, “Woo hoo, we’ve got a champion in Te Awamutu”.
Just as I picked it up, however, one of the judges said the words no one wants to hear in that situation: “Hang on hang on hang on. Put it back down”.
She had spotted the tiniest of flaws, hardly a flaw at all, really, which, after another 10 minutes of discussion, saw it rejected in favour of the one that had beaten it in its class.
I’ve been stewarding at rose shows for 30 years, and am well aware that stewards are supposed to keep their mouths shut at all times, but the temptation, at that moment, to say something pithy, like ”you must be joking!” (expletive deleted) was almost overwhelming. I kept my composure, however, and memorised the judges’ physical features so I can make dolls in their images. I’ll finish them this afternoon, and tomorrow I’ll go to The Warehouse for some pins. None of them will ever walk without a limp again.
So, home again with an empty cardboard box. But there’s always next year, and this time I will have a plan. Can’t say too much, but it will involve talking to the roses. Some beds I will praise and encourage, others I will threaten, so come November I should have a good idea regarding which method works best.
Mum told me her mother talked to her plants, and warned them what would happen if they didn’t lift their game. She reckoned it worked. We’ll soon find out.
Just to be sure, I’ll back that up with threatening emails to a few judges.
And no, I didn’t win a raffle in Te Awamutu.
******
It takes a murder in Sandringham to prompt the Prime Minister, finally, to promise to address increasingly violent crime. Will we, finally, hear the same thing when one of Kainga Ora’s violent, unevictable tenants inevitably murders a neighbour?