News & Updates:

There is no community that will not place high value on rose shows. Only a small percentage of its people may choose to stage blooms at a show, but large numbers will attend and appreciate the flowers. In Melbourne each year over ten thousand people attend the two shows held by the National Rose Society of Victoria. Add to this figure those people who attend country and suburban shows and you will realize that the public appreciates the spectacle of well-grown roses.

Many people attend rose shows to learn more about varieties with which they are not adequately acquainted. These people, by the score, carefully scrutinize every bloom, and, pencil and paper in hand, make lists of roses for their own gardens. They are not always wise in their choosing. They are naturally attracted by the most perfect blooms, and fail to realize that in many instances those varieties are not good garden roses, but are grown by exhibitors who are prepared to forgo profusion of bloom and vigorous growth for the sake of having one or two perfect flowers at show time. It is always safer to choose varieties staged in bunches or vases than those in specimen-bloom classes. It can be assumed with reasonable certainty that the former roses bloom freely.

Nothing has ever increased the public's interest in roses as much as rose shows. It is there that people have learnt of the tremendous advances made by our hybridists and of the beauties and possible uses of the modern rose. Exhibiting roses is not exclusively for the grower of hundreds of plants, but should be enjoyed by every gardener, whether he stages large stands or simply one specimen bloom.