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At most shows special containers are provided for the staging of specimen blooms. These will have a diameter of about three-quarters of an inch at their top. Always be sure they are full of water. In the various States there are different rules for staging. The National Rose Society of Western Australia allows only the rose stem with its own foliage and without wiring. The National Rose Society of New South Wales allows wiring, while the National Rose Societies of Victoria and New Zealand allow both wiring and the adding of foliage.

The calyces of the blooms should be set at a height of five or six inches from the top of the bottle or metal tube. If foliage is added it should be kept well below the flower for one never sees leaves up round the blooms on the plants, and the nearer one keeps to Nature's designing the better the effect. The bloom and foliage should then be firmly fixed at that height with a wad of paper pushed into the mouth of the bottle or tube. The appearance will be enhanced if a little sphagnum moss is pressed in on top of the paper.

In England the almost universal manner of showing specimen blooms is in boxes. These are standardized by regulations of the National Rose Society as being rectangular and of specified sizes for stands of each regularly required number of roses. The boxes are painted black and have a hinged lid. The blooms are set up in the boxes before the exhibitor leaves home and the lids are closed until the box is placed on the show bench. The lids must allow ample clearance for the blooms. The tray of the box is covered with sphagnum moss; foliage is placed under the blooms. Spare blooms are taken in spare boxes. This method of staging is used in Adelaide and occasionally in New Zealand. It is not as pleasing in appearance as the way described for staging in specimen tubes, and it occupies almost twice as much space because of the presence of the upturned bulky lids. It also renders more difficult the interchanging of blooms from one exhibit to another at the last minute, and makes it imperative to stage all blooms equally spaced, whereas in specimen tubes small blooms can be made to appear less small by staging them closer to one another.

When arranging specimen blooms in an exhibit always place the largest one in. the back left-hand corner, the next largest to the right of the first, and continue in this manner, gradually working to the smallest bloom in the right-hand front corner of the stand. Roses are staged in rows, three deep, at most shows.

If possible, alternate dark and light blooms throughout the stand so that no two light or two dark blooms are adjacent either side by side or in front of each other. Try to keep pinks away from reds; yellow is intensified by proximity to either red or white. This colour arrangement may slightly disturb the accuracy of the placing of blooms by a standard of size.