For the past 80 years (with possible time-outs during World War II), the San Diego Rose Society has held a spring rose show. Because San Diego can rightly claim to be the best place on Earth to grow roses, rose shows here have been among the world's finest year after year.
This year's show will be May 17 and 18 in the Balboa Park Club, the first building you see straight ahead at the first stop sign as you enter Balboa Park on Presidents Way from Park Boulevard.
Just 300 feet away is the Air and Space Museum, once known as the Ford Building. In 1935, it was the site of the first American Rose Society (ARS) National Rose Show, co-sponsored by ARS and the San Diego Rose Society.
For the first time, large quantities of roses were flown from around the United States to a show for exhibit. Total cash prizes for winning entries exceeded the price of a new home, lot and all, in San Diego.
That show has inspired the San Diego Rose Society to duplicate some of the attractions and beauty on display back then. This year the emphasis will be on the display of large collections of roses.
Entries from rose societies and garden clubs from across the country have been solicited. Commercial entries also have been invited and plants of next year's best introductions will be on view and presented as prizes for winning show entries.
Encinitas-based Dramm & Echter, a leading greenhouse rose grower, is donating generous collections of roses to its local florist-customers for entry into the show. Leading independent nurseries in San Diego County will also display the best popular varieties of their potted roses.
Participating florists and nurseries will offer discount rose show admission coupons to customers who buy a bouquet of roses or purchase a rose plant at their business in the week before the rose show.
For a list of participating nurseries and florists or information about entering roses in the show as an amateur, contact streeper@cox.net, or sign on to the San Diego Rose Society Web site at sdrosesociety.org.
General admission to the rose show is $5. Hours on May 17 are from completion of judging, estimated to be about noon, until 5 p.m. On May 18, hours are 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.. Parking in Balboa Park is free.
Visitors to the show will be offered introductory memberships in the San Diego Rose Society for $5. Included is a limited subscription to the society's monthly magazine that includes essential and accurate rose-growing information written by the best amateur rose growers in the county.
Tickets to the show will entitle recipients to see the best roses grown in San Diego. All of the newest varieties will be on display including some not yet on the market. Weeks Roses, a world leading rose producer, will have its 2009 All-America Rose Selections-winning floribunda named Cinco de Mayo on display, and five blooming plants of the variety will be included as prizes for show entrants.
Nor'East Miniature Roses, a world leader in miniature roses, will have numerous copies of its upcoming 2009 introductions that also will be offered as prizes for winning entrants.
Above all, you will see roses entered by the best show exhibitors from throughout Southern California and meet people who can tell you how to grow your roses at their best. You will walk away from the show confident and determined to duplicate the beautiful roses you saw at the annual San Diego Rose Show.
Dick Streeper has written a regular column on roses here since May 1981. He is a past president of the San Diego Rose Society and the East County Rose Society, a founder of the Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden in Balboa Park, and a past director of the American Rose Society. He answers rose questions at streeper@cox.net.
