Society Opens Spring Rose Show Season
When Jan Weverka of Monrovia first proposed planting a couple of rose bushes many years ago, her husband, Jack, balked. He remembered pruning his mother’s roses, and he wanted nothing more to do with thorns.
A subtle war of the roses ensued, with Jan adding a few bushes each year and Jack resisting.
But one year, Jan won a ribbon in a rose exhibition, and after that, she said, “Jack finally began to see the blooms instead of the thorns.”
The Weverkas, along with more than 100 other rosarians, will exhibit their finest roses at the 37th annual Pacific Rose Society Show this weekend at Los Angeles State and County Arboretum in Arcadia.
This is the first of many spring rose shows in Southern California and represents an opportunity to see prize-winning specimens, talk with experts, identify your own roses, purchase miniatures and perhaps take home a bouquet of roses grown by masters.
Jan Weverka, who has planted more than 300 roses to landscape her hillside home, has turned her one-third acre into a rose showplace, stopping traffic on Oakglade Avenue when the roses are in bloom and winning an award from the City of Monrovia for the most beautifully landscaped yard.
One of the joys of growing hundreds of roses is the steady supply of blooms for bouquets.
“I never visit a friend,” says Weverka, “without taking three dozen long-stemmed roses carefully arranged in a vase filled with water, so that the bouquet can be enjoyed effortlessly and immediately.”
Working with a large sloping front yard, she arranged roses in a contoured bed around a Japanese maple, leaving ample lawn to complement the roses and house. Because of the slope, scalloped concrete tree rings secure the basin of each rose bush. Floribunda roses (like Catherine Loker, Show Biz and Iceberg) cascade from the edges of the bed, while hybrid teas occupy the center and back.
In planter beds next to the front door, Weverka concentrates red roses, using Rainbow’s End (a red-and-yellow miniature), Showbiz (a compact red mid-size bush) and Olympiad (a tall bush bearing scarlet blooms).
This is not a pricey rose garden designed by strangers and maintained by a weekly crew. Weverka does all the work herself--although her recently retired husband is increasingly becoming part of the rose-growing enterprise.
Weverka, a statuesque red-haired grandmother, is an upbeat, enthusiastic individual who looks for the blooms in life and refuses to dwell on the thorns. She likes to keep busy, whether building rock walls, tending her roses, practicing country decorative painting, or sharing her skills with others.
Her large rose collection is demanding, requiring frequent feeding and spraying.
“Each bush is like a little prima donna, constantly saying, ‘Feed me, spray me and don’t forget to wash my face!’ ”
Frequently balancing five or six projects, Weverka says, “I like to keep my dance card full.”
Weverka says she really hasn’t made it into the big time among rose exhibitors. “The best I’ve been able to win so far is an award for the best rose spray (a stem with three blooms), but I’m working my way up the awards table.”
At the Pacific Rose Society Show today, hundreds of specimens will be entered by rosarians, many of whom point their entire growing season toward this show. They’re all competing to have their roses chosen for the awards table: Top prizes go to the Queen of Show (most beautiful hybrid tea or grandiflora), King of Show (second prize), and Princess (third prize). Awards in the past have always gone to modern hybrid teas and floribundas, but new categories include old garden roses and miniatures.
The rosarians will compete for trophies and ribbons in what is considered the Southland’s oldest and largest rose show.
The 37th annual Pacific Rose Show sponsored by the Pacific Rose Society, today 1 to 4:30 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Los Angeles State and County Arboretum, 301 N. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia. Information: (818) 794-4414. Aboretum admission: adults $3, seniors/students $1.50, children 5 to 12, 75 cents.
