So – the rose bug has bit you! You have learned about planting, pruning and spraying! Now you are ready to exhibit!

If possible, attend a rose show and visit the preparation room where you can watch the exhibitors at work before you exhibit yourself. Most exhibitors are usually pretty busy during this time, so be sensitive about asking questions. Take mental notes and ask them about their exhibiting techniques after their entries are placed into the show. Volunteer to clerk (no previous experience required) in order to learn how rose shows are set up and how the judges work. Obtain a copy of the ARS Guidelines for Judging Roses and read it.

For your first show, choose one fairly close to home and one that offers some Novice Classes. You are not limited to novice status, but you might feel more comfortable starting there. Obtain a copy of the show schedule and read it. Decide which classes you might like to enter. Limit your number of entries to allow yourself enough time to give each rose your attention. You can take more than one rose to the show per class, and at the last minute, decide which one to enter.

ONE MONTH BEFORE THE SHOW

Start watching your roses for potential exhibition specimens. If you plan to exhibit a single bloom on a stem, you will need a strong, straight stem that has been disbudded as it developed. Disbudding is the process of removing all side buds that form between the stem and the axil of the leaf. This allows all the energy to go to the terminal bud. Eventually you might want to stake the cane with a bamboo stick and some twist ties. Be sure to keep the tip of the stake just under the bloom. Staking protects the cane from snapping off in the wind and prevents leaf tearing on thorns from nearby canes.

If you plan to show a floribunda spray, you will want to remove the center (largest) bud at the point of emergence from the stem. This allows the side buds to develop and fill in the hole where that first bloom would have been if allowed to develop. That center bloom would have developed first and been finished by the time the rest of the spray was in exhibition form. Removing it at that time would have left the hole.

Water your bushes regularly and keep up your spraying schedule! Prepare a grooming kit which you will use the day of the show. Get a small plastic or metal case and gather together the following items:

• Soft clean cloths (hotel shoe shine cloths are great)

• A package of Q-tips

• Tweezers

• Small sharp scissors

• Small camel-hair brush

• Several sheets of aluminum foil and/or plastic wrap

• Return address labels

• An ARS Handbook for Selecting Roses and ARS Exhibition Names

• If possible, some exhibiting tags with rubber bands that you picked up at a previous show or local society meeting

ONE WEEK BEFORE THE SHOW

Watch the blooms that are starting to open and have show potential. Protect them from night dew by covering with a plastic baggy and twist tie gently below the bloom. This should be done in the evening and removed before the sun shines on the bloom and heats the air inside the bag.

2-3 DAYS BEFORE THE SHOW

When do you cut the rose? The timing varies depending on the variety of the rose, the number of petals, the temperature and general weather conditions and your ability to store the cut roses.

Roses should be cut 1/4 – 1/3 open which allows them time to open more on the morning of the show. Cut them early in the morning if possible or late in the evening. Cut the stem a little longer than the 7:1 ratio (the stem should be 7 times longer than the height of the bloom) to allow for recutting later.

Cut the stem at an angle with sharp, clean pruners and immediately take it to your preparation area. A laundry tub works great! Have some tall, white plastic buckets available which you can usually obtain from a bakery or a sandwich shop. In one bucket put a flower preservative mixture, such as Floralife®, and cold water up to 3-4 inches. Fill another bucket to the top with tepid water. Bring the roses in from the garden, one or two at a time to prevent them from snagging one another. Submerge the rose stem in the full bucket, recut the stem and then lower it into the water so the water comes up just below the bloom. Allow the roses to rest in the tepid water and drink their fill, but watch the blossoms carefully. If you see a bloom start to open, place it in the cold water that contains the preservative immediately. After an hour or two, move any remaining roses to the cool water bucket and put in a cool dark place. If you place your rose bucket in a refrigerator, be sure to put a baggy on the blooms so they do not lose moisture from the petals. If you cut the night before the show, you probably will not need to refrigerate.

THE MORNING OF THE SHOW

Rise early. Remove the roses from the refrigerator and take one last walk through the garden for another possible entry. Pack up your roses and your grooming box and head for the show. Plan to arrive early so you can get table space and your favorite doughnut! Register, if required, and gather enough vases for your roses. If you plan to enter a rose in a bowl (you do not need a good stem for this), check ahead of time to see if you need to bring your own bowl or use one supplied by the show committee.

Place each rose in a bud vase and evaluate the bloom stage. If the bloom is too tight, carefully insert Q-tips between the petals to encourage opening. Take note of the temperature in the room and check if any sunlight is shining in on your roses. Warmth will hasten the opening. Sometimes, the air conditioning is so low, you have to remove the rose to another location to warm it up. I once put a rose in my car which was parked in the sun. Guess who showed an open bloom? You have to use your own judgment. A lot of knowing what to do comes with trial and error and experience.

Support each leaf from behind with your fingers, and polish the surface with a soft cloth. During this time, watch your blooms for any adjustments they might need. Carefully remove any guard petals (those small petals on the very outside that protected the bud) that have color faults or are smaller than the outer ring of petals. If an outer petal is hanging low, you can raise it by carefully by lifting it so it rests on the petals next to it. Use your brush to remove any fine debris from the petals and use the scissors to trim any brown or torn edges from the petals or leaves. Check the proportion of the bloom to the stem. You can adjust this somewhat by pushing the stem deeper into the vase or wedging it with rolled up plastic wrap or foil. Be sure the stem is in the water and the wedging material is not showing above the top of the vase.

Fill out the exhibitors’ entry tags, if you haven’t already done so. Use your ARS Handbook to check rose names and the proper spellings. Use your address labels to save writing all that information on each tag. Attach your entry tags to the vase and make one final check of the overall appearance. Set the vase on the floor and look down on the entire entry. If you need to adjust or trim, this is your last chance. Place your entries on the exhibition table, one at a time if possible. Immediately clean up your work space. Return any unused vases and wipe up any water. Secure your personal belongings and go find some fellow rosarians to enjoy a hearty breakfast and rose talk!

Good luck!

Rose shows operating under standards established by the American Rose Society are judged by ARS Accredited Judges often with the assistance of ARS Apprentice Judges. Judging is normally done by judging teams consisting of three Accredited Judges or two Accredited Judges and one Apprentice Judge. Judges are usually selected from throughout the local area and typically receive no compensation for their services other than a free luncheon. They are thus motivated only by the love of roses and the fellowship of rosarians.

The process of judging anything necessitates the existence of standards. Novices seeking to lose their status as such should therefore learn those standards in order to present candidates (exhibition specimens) that the judges will admire and to which they will award a trophy.

The currently agreed set of rose judging standards is set forth in the ARS publication Guidelines for Judging Roses. For serious exhibitors this book is essential; for novices it is desirable. In fact even a rose show visitor will find the book useful, just as a descriptive catalogue or brochure is helpful in understanding a museum or art gallery. The book is a good buy at $7.60 (including postage); order it from The American Rose Society book catalog. Read it carefully because the judges have done so and herein you will find much of use in preparing your roses for the show.

For the novice exhibitor a thorough knowledge of the Guidelines is not critical. Typically there is but one novice class, few of the competitors in that class are familiar with the Guidelines, and the judges are more forgiving in their assessments. But therein lies the opportunity to exit the novice ranks early. An entry in the novice class fitting the Guidelines will have a much higher likelihood of receiving the trophy. Accordingly let us here examine the Guidelines as they apply to the novice classes.

Avoid Disqualification

The first subject to address is that of disqualification. When a rose is “disqualified” it is removed from consideration altogether. By contrast a rose that is “penalized” for various faults simply loses points and can still be a winner. It is therefore fundamental that you must avoid disqualification.

Lest you head immediately for the exit be assured that disqualification rarely occurs (particularly in a novice class) and can be avoided with simply a little care. On the other hand it remains a real possibility should you get sloppy, much as an error in baseball. I have had entries disqualified on several occasions, almost always through carelessness or oversight. I have also seen entries from the very best exhibitors disqualified. It is embarrassing, but less so for the novice, and it can be avoided. Here then is a summary of reasons for disqualification most often encountered by the novice.

Misnamed. You have to write the correct name of the variety on the entry card and use the ARS show name. Judges can even get picky about the spelling. Take along your ARS Guidelines for Selecting Roses and check the name and its spelling even if you think you are sure.

Misclassed. You have to write the correct class in which you are entering on the tag. This is not a big deal. Look at the show schedule. If in doubt ask the person doing placement.

Unlabeled/Mislabeled. You must have an entry tag and must write your name on it. Many shows do not require you to fill out the whole thing — check the show schedule to see or ask someone. Use waterproof pen with blue or black ink so that it doesn’t become unreadable when a little water slops on it.

Stem-on-stem. With the exception of shrubs and old garden roses generally, entries are required to be exhibited on one stem. If the stem is exhibited with a portion of another stem attached to it the rose is disqualified. To avoid this cut off any piece of the prior stem when you are cleaning the rose so you don’t forget to do this later.

Foreign Substance. You may not apply a “foreign substance” to the foliage, stem or bloom to improve its appearance. This doesn’t mean that you can’t wash the leaves with a little water; in fact you should do so as I will explain in a later column. The idea is to leave no residue. So forget about oil, green ink, floral clay, pins and wires.

Not Disbudded. Single stem blooms must be exhibited without sidebuds. Failure to remove sidebuds is grounds for disqualification. Sloppy removal requires penalization. Remove any sidebuds or sidebud residue when cleaning the rose.

Judging Factors

A single stem hybrid tea/grandiflora or miniature rose is judged by reference to six factors. These factors are discussed separately below; their relative values are discussed in the next section.

Form. “Form” is, and has been historically, the most important factor in the judging of roses. The determination of the existence of form is initially made by looking straight down into the bloom. The petals of a rose with exhibition form will be seen to unfurl in a perfect spiral from a point in the center. Roses showing more than one point in the center are said to have split centers. Roses with no clearly defined center point are often referred to as having muddled centers. References will also be heard to roses with a “hole” in the center, a “snubbed” center (one where a portion of a petal hides the center, or “blown” roses (the center has opened up to show the stamens). Note all these references are to the “center” of the rose and this is the key to understanding form.

The Guidelines will tell you that form is also evaluated from the side. An exhibition form rose is supposed to be one-half to three-fourths open and form a triangle with a high center. For novices however this is not as important as long as the rose is no longer a bud and is open enough to display a well formed center.

Color. “Color” is said to be made up of three elements: hue, chroma and brightness. This factor has nothing to do with the actual color class of the rose. This is supposed to be a neutral factor and the judge is supposed to judge mauve roses equally with white roses, even if he or she detests the color mauve. I suspect that many judges cannot tell you the difference between a hue and chroma and neither for that matter can I.

The real question is whether the color looks fresh so this factor depends in large part on the factor called “substance.”

Substance. Substance is the amount of moisture or starch in the petals. Novices generally know this by the term “freshness.” A rose with good substance looks and feels fresh. A judge is not allowed to feel the bloom; in fact the judge is not permitted to touch it at all. If it looks real fresh to you on close examination it will probably look fresh to the judge as well.

Stem and Foliage. The factor that usually separates the trophy from the blue ribbons in the novice section is “stem and foliage.” Roses cut by novices for the home and office usually have short scraggly stems and dirty tattered foliage. A good exhibition rose is shown on a long straight stem with clean intact foliage. Select roses with straight stems and clean the foliage. After all, you would probably shower before going out on a date; the foliage of your roses will need one as well.

Balance and Proportion. The relationship between the bloom on the one hand and the stem and foliage on the other is known as “balance and proportion.” This is one of these “you know it when you see it” kind of tests which requires experience so it is hard to describe to a novice. As a simple rule of thumb a stem on a hybrid tea should be about 18-21″ long plus, depending on the size of the bloom. (Here I am speaking of the stem without regard to the height of the bloom head – since the height of a bloom head of a typical HT is 3-4″ this means that the entry will be about 21-25″ in height). The stem on a miniature should be around 6-7″ long, again depending on the size of the bloom head.

Size. The last factor is the size of the bloom head. Bigger hybrid teas are supposed to be better. A miniature is supposed to be petite unless the variety is not usually petite. (I recognize that this latter statement makes little sense but it is a fair paraphrase of what is said in the Guidelines).Size is the one factor where there seems to be little uniformity of response among judges except in the fact that many judges seem to ignore it. It is not, however, a big deal in relationship to other factors and even less of one in the novice class so it can be easily ignored at this point.

The Point Scoring System

The point scoring system is the method by which the relevant values of the six factors are expressed. It is therefore important to know those relative values but do not imagine for a moment that the judges actually try to point score every rose. In fact they rarely do so at all. (If they did it would take all day and the winner would be the last rose to fade). It is nevertheless a valuable point of reference for communication and decision making and is worth committing to memory.

The point scoring system assigns the following relative values to the six factors.

The most important factor is form, which is notable by its presence. Most judges will not award a blue ribbon to a rose lacking form. “No form = no blue” is a useful slogan to remember. Don’t waste time on roses which lack form, unless you have an abnormal interest in red, yellow and white ribbons.

Color and substance count for a lot of points but are usually noted only in their absence. Faded roses and those on their way stand out even to the non-experienced. So if your rose doesn’t look faded don’t worry too much about these two factors.

Stem and foliage together with balance and proportion outnumber form in the point category. However roses cannot overcome a lack of form by having great stems, foliage, balance and proportion. On the other hand, as I have noted, it is by these latter factors that the trophy winning blue ribbon winner is usually selected from the other blues, particularly in the novice class.

The bottom line for the novice is this: select a fresh rose with good form and you will have a blue ribbon winner. If it has a straight long stem with clean foliage you won’t be a novice long.

Inflorescence

Novice classes normally call for single stem specimens of hybrid teas / grandifloras and/or miniatures. Some shows have a novice class for a floribunda spray and a miniature spray.

In novice terms a “spray” is a bunch of blooms on a single stem. A spray is judged on its “inflorescence.” This is a fancy term which is useful in conversation; it has to do with the shape of the spray head.

For novice purposes the blooms in a spray don’t have to be at the same stage of opening. Instead the importance is the existence of a pleasing visual effect in the inflorescence. A nice inflorescence presents a regular outline of the spray when viewed from above and the side. This could take the shape of a circle, an oval or anything else consistent and symmetrical. It is permissible and indeed desirable to clip off blooms which stick out like sore thumbs and mar the appearance, as long as you do it neatly. Although a spray can technically have as few as three blooms the winner usually looks like a small to medium bouquet of a half-dozen or more blooms.

As Easy as 1-2-3

The foregoing may seem like a lot of stuff to assimilate but it is not that tough. Most of it can be boiled down to three simple rules as easy to remember as 1-2-3:

• Fill out your entry tag carefully and accurately.

• Select only roses showing exhibition form.

• Cut the stem about as long as possible (avoiding stem-on-stem) and prefer straight stems with clean foliage.

As you might guess there are techniques to get your roses to meet this model which will be discussed later in this series. But do not forget that just as you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, you cannot make a winning entry out of a losing rose!