Longwood sometimes hosts events for other horticultural organizations in the gardens. This weekend the Dec-Chester Rose Society had a Rose show. The operations manager here at Longwood sent an e-mail around asking if anyone wanted to help out and three of us students chose to do that both on Friday evening and then Saturday morning.

(Friday we only set up the ‘mechanics’ for the show)

This is a link to the Del-Chester Rose Society. I learned a bit about it and its members being able to work right along beside them for two days. They’re a very nice group of people. If you’re in the area and have an interest in roses, I highly recommend looking them up!

(It was pretty busy with all the different exhibitors getting their roses ready)

So on Friday we essentially set up tables. The tables themselves and then all the materials on the tables.

(There was also a ‘design’ section in the show)

I grew up going to lots and lots of dog shows, so my natural inclination is to compare this show to how dog shows typically work. Its surprisingly similar! Granted, this one smelled a lot better.

(The exhibited roses were put out once their ‘owners’ thought they were ready. Most were pretty last minute because of all the ‘grooming’)

Exhibitors showed up on Saturday morning (many as early as 6am!) with big containers full of roses. They spent the morning putting the roses in display tubes, labeling each one, and then ‘grooming’. Seriously. There was just as much aesthetic manipulation as at a dog show. I was completely fascinated by it actually.

Specifically for the Hybrid Tea roses, where the exhibitors used q-tips and cotton balls simply to form the way the petals were.

Upstairs they had the second part of the show set up in the Foundry Room of the Terrace Restaurant. It was predomininately for the rose ‘designs’ but there was a large table in the front that was meant to display all the class winners from downstairs.

And that’s what the photos that follow are from. These were just some of my favorites that were there.