In June 1946, Harold E. Weaver took five roses to his first show and walked off with five blue ribbons when the judging was over.
One of his blooms was judged best in the show, and two others were rated second and third. At the time, only 16 out of the 41 bushes he grew in his Basil, Ohio garden were of the exhibition type.
Unintimidated by such a brilliant beginning, he went on to win so consistently at all the major Ohio shows to attract nationwide attention.
Look at his record! Since 1946 Weaver’s been presented with more ribbons than he can count. He’s won nearly one hundred trophies and is the first to be awarded the Hershey, the McFarland, and the Rosedale national trophies of the American Rose Society.
He has yet to try for the Nicholson Perpetual Challenge Bowl, but he expects to. If his roses are ready in time, he may enter the class for the Bowl at the National Rose Show in May at St. Louis.
His record is so amazing that rosarians everywhere speculate about how he does it. Some think he must have a secret method of growing and preparing roses for shows.
Orthodox Rose Growing Methods
This is different. Weaver grows his roses by sound, orthodox methods. He goes beyond most successful growers in only two details: he covers his rose beds when freezing weather threatens in spring and shades them during the hottest part of the summer.
As for cutting, conditioning, getting specimens to shows, and displaying them to advantage, he follows the usual procedures plus, like everyone else, a few extras that experience has taught him to pay off.
He, for instance, has devised containers that he uses to hold blooms cut ahead of time and to carry them to shows in perfect condition. But many others use containers as efficiently as his.
He Knows His Plants
In short, Weaver is successful chiefly because he pays careful attention to every detail connected with growing roses, from spring to fall, and knows his plants.
Every variety he grows is listed on a large cardboard chart at the beginning of the season. All facts about each one appear after its name.
Facts such as date rose were planted when it was unhilled, cultivated, fed, sprayed, and dusted; when the first signs of growth appeared, when the plant was disbudded, how bud developed; when it was cut, how long it remained in the refrigerator when it opened when it seemed perfect enough to be shown when it opened fully. He now has eight years of such records.
Daily Weather Chart
He also keeps a daily weather chart from pruning time to October 1. This check against the larger chart tells him how weather influences plants.
By consulting the charts, Weaver knows what his roses will do. He knows how many days it will be from when he prunes in spring or cuts back in summer before the bloom is ready to be cut for a show. He knows how to adjust to the weather.
His chart tells him that a Charlotte Armstrong bloom will be ready for cutting in about 62 days from pruning in spring, that a Crimson Glory will be ready in 72 days, and that it will be 81 days before a Butterscotch is ready.
So he prunes each variety in spring or cuts it back in summer on a date that will bring it into bloom for the show where he intends to exhibit it.
Thus he never has to complain, “My roses were at their best last week,” or “I can’t show them because my roses won’t be out until next week.” Unless something abnormal upsets his calculations, everyone expecting to enter a show will be ready to cut on schedule.
Basil, where Weaver lives, is a small country town about 30 miles southeast of Columbus. His lot is 100’ feet wide and 140’ feet deep.
Weaver’s Exhibition Roses
His exhibition roses, 175 hybrid teas, are grown in three beds.
Elsewhere he has about 100 others— climbers, floribundas species, and old-fashioned roses, and some sent to him by professional growers for testing.
His varieties include a good collection of older and newer ones. He especially likes the following:
- Crimson Glory
- Charlotte Armstrong
- Poinsettia
- The Doctor
- Nocturne
- Rex Anderson
- Peace
- Capistrano
- Tallyho
- Confidence
- White Swan
- Mission Bells
- Chrysler Imperial
- Helen Traubel
Weaver’s beds of exhibition plants are contained within concrete walls reinforced by wire cables. The walls are 4” to 5” inches thick and extend 18” inches below and 11” inches above the ground’s surface.
The soil inside the walls is about 5” inches above the ground level outside the walls. The beds inside the walls are 4’ feet wide.
Running through the entire length of each one—about 12” inches below the surface—is a line of 3” inch tile.
Preparing Bed
Weaver prepares beds at least 10 to 12 weeks before planting so the soil can settle. Usually, he prepares beds in spring for roses he plants in fall and prepares beds in fall for roses he plants in spring.
In preparing a bed, Weaver digs out all soil down to 30” inches. He keeps the top and subsoil apart. He fills the bed up to 18” or 20” inches with a mixture of equal parts subsoil and manure and peat, using three parts of manure to one of peat.
He works into the mixture of some superphosphate and bone meal. He then throws the rest of the subsoil over the mixture, packs the bed down solid, and waters it thoroughly.
A few days later, he fills the bed with 8” to 10” inches of a mixture consisting of two-thirds topsoil and one-third peat and manure. He waters this down and allows the bed to settle. When he plants, the soil is so firm that roses cannot shift position once planted.
He uses a ditching spade to prepare holes for bushes. First, he makes a round hole with straight sides that is several inches deep and sufficiently large. Then he digs some more, at an angle outward from the center, so that when the hole is ready for the plant, there’s a solid cone of soil in its center.
He sets the plant over the cone, spreads its roots (as they naturally fall) around it, and fills the soil around them.
When the hole is almost full, he firms the soil, tamping it with his feet, and waters it. A few hours later, he fills up the cavity with dry soil.
A bush is set in holes, so the bud union is just about even with the bed’s surface. Some varieties, such as Charlotte Armstrong, are set, so the bud union is 1 ½” inches below the soil because Weaver has discovered that he gets better basal breaks when he does this.
Anywhere from March 10 on, more often about March 15 or 20, roses are unhilled. Soon afterward, Weaver begins to prune with show dates in mind.
Pruning Canes
Plants are pruned about 12” to 16” inches from the ground. Regardless of anything, they’re pruned to live in wood. Three to four of the strongest canes are retained on each bush. All weak and twiggy growth is removed.
Canes are not all cut back to the same length. They’re cut at different lengths to make the bush produce blooms at different times, not all at once, and to make it more shapely.
Ends of cut canes are painted with an emulsified water-soluble asphalt (True-Heel) and never with a tar base paint, as Weaver has found that it is toxic to some plants.
Fertilizing
Fertilizer is applied, for the first time, between March 30 and April 15. When it is applied depends on show dates.
A handful of a standard commercial brand of 7-8-5 organic fertilizer is scattered around each bush scheduled to receive food at this time. Another handful is given to each one after the June bloom.
Early in August, a mixture of superphosphate and potash (no nitrogen) is applied to beds in liquid form at three pounds per every 100 square feet.
Weaver never feeds plants after August 15 to 20 (unless he expects to cut blooms for a fall show), so they will have a chance to harden off properly.
Plants from which he expects to cut blooms for a fall show are fed some liquid manure toward fall.
He gets fresh manure from a dairy farm, half fills a 5-gallon can with it, pours in enough water to fill the can to the top, and allows the mixture to soak. He then pours off 1 1/2 quarts of the liquid for each plant.
He never fertilizes any rose planted in spring or the previous fall. The first food such plants receive is after the June bloom, and then they get only half a handful of the 7-8-5 fertilizer.
In late fall, Weaver prepares plants for winter by tieing canes of each bush together at the top with twine. Then he lowers a bottomless wooden box over each one.
After he picks off all lower leaves, he takes soil from between the bushes in the bed and pours it into the wooden boxes until they’re half full. The soil used to fill boxes to the top is hauled in from the vegetable garden.
After roses are hilled, as described above, spaces between bushes from which soil was removed are filled with commercially dried, processed cow manure left on the beds and not cleaned off in spring but worked into the soil.
Spring Chores
So much for the fall chores. Now back to spring. After plants are pruned in spring, the beds are cultivated with a three-pronged hoe.
Weaver prefers to cultivate instead of mulch and does so soon after beds are rained on or watered—just before the soil dries enough to harden and crack.
When new, dormant plants arrive, he sprinkles them with lime sulfur, killing any disease or insect egg masses they may have on them.
Weaver used to sprinkle lime sulfur around dormant plants each spring after pruning, but since he’s found that captain will not only control blackspot but kill it, he’s abandoned the lime sulfur treatment.
Both dust and sprays play a part in Weaver’s pest control program. He uses all-purpose mixtures containing verbatim, malathion (no DDT), sulfur, and a polysulphide compound for mildew.
He usually begins with dust as the first foliage appears and changes to a spray by summer. He dusts or sprays about once a week and often in case of rain.
Necessary Watering
Plants are watered as necessary during dry spells up to September 1 and never after that date.
At times beds are soaked from below (water is run into the tiles located under the beds described earlier), and at times, they’re watered from above—soaked thoroughly using a little metal irrigator with small holes in it, fastened to a hose.
This gadget is invaluable because it does not wash soil away and does not spatter water on the foliage.
Holes 2 ½” inches deep, made with a star drill, occur at 6’ foot intervals on top of the concrete walls around the beds.
Stout pipes are fitted into the holes to make a frame that supports a cover that shelters plants during cold spells in spring and a lath shade that protects them from the hot sun in summer.
Protection
In early spring, when plants are small, pipes only 21” inches high are fitted into the holes. Woolen mats, secured from a local paper mill, are stretched over the frame made by the pipes. Thus newly pruned plants are protected during the freezing weather that frequently occurs early in spring.
A maximum of a minute is needed to stretch the mats over the beds if a sudden drop in temperature threatens.
Later when bushes are taller if a freeze threatens (as in May of 1954), pipes 3×2’ feet long are fitted into the holes, and the mats are stretched over them.
During hot weather, the 3 ½’ foot pipes are fastened to pipes 4’ feet long. The two pipe lengths together extend 7 ½’ feet above the concrete sides of the beds and 8’ feet above the surface. They support lath shades.
The net result is strong, thrifty bushes and quality blooms that bring home the prizes.
Cut Roses In Containers
Cut roses are placed in about 2” inches of water in containers shown beside Mr. Weaver in the photo, page 60.
Wire loops set in wooden frames at the top of each container secure a large sheet of cellophane around each bloom.
The cellophane is so fastened that it seals in all moisture and shuts out all air-dehydrating and discoloring blooms.
The cut roses are kept in the refrigerator in sealed containers and taken out every couple of days, if necessary, to have about a quarter of an inch of the bottom of their stems cut off so they can absorb water readily and remain fresh.
When it’s time to set off for a show, the containers are taken out of the refrigerator and fitted into a carrying case, also shown beside Mr. Weaver in the photo.
One side of the carrying case is hinged like a section of a drop leaf table. It is made to pack as much cracked ice between containers.
The side is lifted when the case is packed with ice, and a cover is placed over the top. The cover rests on supporting strips of wood and is screwed on tight with thumb screws at each end.
Metal lining the bottom of the case prevents water from seeping out. Roses can be kept in good condition, packed thus, for about 24 hours if the weather is not extremely hot.
Containers and cases are important details that help Weaver win as often as he does.
44659 by Donald K. O’Brien