‘Miniature roses . . . don’t want to stay where you put them.’

Orcutt Ranch Horticulture Center is a splendid, and well-camouflaged, city park on the western outskirts of the Valley, where Roscoe Boulevard disappears into the hills.

The ranch was built as the vacation home of Union Oil Co. vice president William Orcutt. It became a weekend retreat for his friends, among them presidents, movie stars and millionaires.

Since 1966 its well-manicured classical gardens, nature trails and 1920s Spanish ranch house have been available for more humble activities such as weddings and the meetings of the West Valley Garden Club, which gathered there Tuesday morning.

Twenty women of the club, most with hair in tones of silver or gray, sat in two rows of metal chairs on the parqueted floor of the ranch’s sitting room. The club officers sat facing them at a table.

Behind them, the Orcutt coat of arms and motto, “Mean well, speak well, do well,” were carved into a Philippine mahogany fireplace--an entirely fitting shibboleth for the present company.

When I wandered into the anteroom, the meeting was already in progress and one of the women stepped out, thinking to help get me headed in the direction of whatever I was looking for.

She was astonished when I asked to come in.

“You want to join us old fa . . .?” she said, cutting the indiscretion short. “I should say us old ladies.”

The women were electing Winifred Jackson to a lifetime membership. She had joined the club in 1960, was its president from 1964 to 1966 and again from 1970 to 1974, and held numerous other posts.

“Of all the people who have worked, I’m sure we’ll all agree that Winifred Jackson has done the most,” the current president, Larene Carlson, said.

All clapped their approval.

The meeting proceeded informally. Anyone who had something to say stood up and said it, and anyone who already knew the information was free to converse with a neighbor until there were so many side conversations that the others shushed them.

One woman announced her discovery of the Papaya Tree Nursery, which sells exotic fruits.

“My husband wants a cherimoya tree,” she said. “I’m not sure the fruit is that good. But I think when you try food from another country and it doesn’t taste so good, it takes a little time to get used to it.”

Four women showed floral arrangements they had made from their own gardens. The most intriguing, in my novice’s view, consisted of three doll-house vases and cups holding bouquets of miniature roses.

But the woman who made them wasn’t pleased.

“It’s really difficult with miniature roses because they don’t want to stay where you put them,” she said.

From the audience, it was difficult to tell.

The club’s master judge, Evelyn Warrington, introduced the flowers of the month.

The first was a blue hibiscus that she said her son gave her for her birthday.

The flower was smaller and more subtle than the hibiscus usually is. It had only a few blue petals cupped tightly in the shape of a bell with a short yellow stamen inside.

“It can almost be used like a native,” she said. “It requires very little water.”

She also showed a pink miniature rose. She said she’d had it in her garden for years but found one in a store only recently at Sperling Nursery in Calabasas.

“If you guys haven’t been there, you just have to go,” she said.

“But leave your checkbooks at home,” someone in the audience added.

Next on the agenda was Show ‘n’ Tell.

One woman showed duck-shaped wicker baskets for which she had sewn covers, and another showed clowns with striped clothing that she makes.

A third member brought scrapbooks with pictures of gardens in her native Hawaii during the 1920s.

Finally, Carlson, the club president, showed several professional-looking architectural renderings, landscape designs and interior designs she had done.

“I wanted to be most of all an architect,” she said. “I designed 10 houses in my life. Second, I always thought it would be nice to be a landscape architect. I worked for about five years with an interior designer. I never stayed with any of these long enough to make a success at it.”

“You were a success,” the women assured her.

During an intermission the women bought and sold unusual plants from their gardens, including dwarf geraniums, cuttings of corkscrew willows and a tiny apricot tree.

After that, the Silver Streak Players, an improvisational group to which one of them belongs, did several skits.

Then the women had a potluck lunch. They ate on paper plates. But their floral arrangements were fit for an Orcutt.