When you take flowers to your local flower show, do you manage to collect your share of blue ribbons?
Or have you been content to see the top honors go elsewhere, even when you felt that the star blooms from your beds and borders were—or at least had been when you picked them—equally fine specimens?
Qualities Of A Good Showman
The fact is that many a good gardener is a poor showman. Sometimes, this is just a lack of interest in this particular phase of horticulture.
More often, however, it indicates merely ignorance of one or more of the several factors that go together to enhance your chances of winning your due share of awards.
Boiled down to essentials, these four factors are:
- Following the schedule.
- Selecting the material to be shown.
- Keeping and transporting it safely.
- Staging it to the best advantage.
Follow Show Schedule Requirements
Every year, in judging and visiting flower shows, we see example after example of ignorance or carelessness regarding one or more of these steps costing the exhibitor a possible award.
It is astonishing how many gardeners, experienced ones, and beginners fail to comply with the exact requirements of the schedule.
For instance: a class calls for a collection of 5 (different) annuals.
The exhibitor will put in a zinnia, a marigold, a petunia, and two varieties of asters.
Or in a class for 3 specimens, a fourth will be stuck in for good measure, or in a class calling for a “spray” of chrysanthemums, a whole branch, carrying many sprays, will be presented.
In such cases, the judges have no choice but to disqualify the exhibit, regardless of the quality of the flowers.
The best they can do is write the exhibitor a little note of regret, explain the reasons for disqualification, and hope it may have some effect.
If the meaning of any class in the show schedule is not perfectly clear to you, get in touch with the proper authority (usually the chairman of the scheduling committee) before you enter it.
One section of the schedule is devoted to a particular flower species, such as roses, dahlias, daffodils, or chrysanthemums. For instance, the class may call for a specific type, such as a floribunda rose, a giant trumpet daffodil, or a cushion ‘mum.
Most special flower societies have lists that give the official classification of all well-known and new varieties.
When in doubt, consult such a list, or seek the advice of the schedule or classification committee.
Select The Perfect Materials For The Show
Your decision on what to enter in a show will be based on your study of the schedule, combined with a survey of what you have in your garden.
Here, experience is essential, for if selections are made, as they should be, several days or even more before the show, only experience will enable the gardener to estimate which blooms will be at the peak of perfection on the day of the show.
This evaluation is known as “timing,” a sixth sense that will tell you what will be ready.
Lacking such personal experience, you may be able to commandeer the assistance of some friend who can help you on this point. When you get to the point where you are growing, especially for showing, your “timing” will start weeks or even months before the date of the show.
Consider Official Score Cards For Judging
In selecting specimens for the show, keep in mind that size, while necessary, is not everything.
In rose judging, size counts for only 10 points out of 100.
The official rose judging scorecard is as follows:
- Form – 25 points
- Substance – 15 points
- Color – 20 points
- Stem and foliage – 20 points
- Balance and Proportion – 10 points
- Size – 10 points
- TOTAL – 100 points
While not identical to this, other scorecards follow much the same pattern.
While they all deal with roses, the accompanying illustrations are typical of the things to be kept in mind in the handling of most flowers.
It is crucial to have them nearly uniform in classes that call for more than one specimen.
Three medium-sized zinnias or potatoes would—other points being equal—score over one huge and two small ones.
Cut The Selected Flowers Before The Show
Flowers selected for showing should be cut sufficiently in advance to be well “hardened” before being set up on the show table.
This means cutting them at least as far in advance as the evening before the show and storing them, with the stems deep in cold water, in a cool and moist place as is available.
In scorching weather, ice may well be added to the water, or if the quantity is not too large, they may be kept in a refrigerator, care being taken not to let them touch the sides.
Many annuals open quickly and should lie cut in half-open or even the bud stage.
A week or so in advance of the show, a little experimenting will guide them in estimating at just what stage they should be cut to be at their best when judged.
Remember that the judge must score a flower as he sees it, not as it might have been yesterday or will be a few hours after the show committee took him nut to lunch!
Delay The Budding Of Far Developed Flowers
Flowers that look as though they might be too far developed by showtime can usually be held for several days to a week at refrigerator temperature.
Or those which look as though they would not quite make it may be hurried up by keeping them in tepid water and under full light.
We won a “Best Rose in the Show” award with our first blossom of Peace, which was the year it was introduced.
By cutting it—when it became evident it was not going to make the show—in fairly tight bud and keeping it for 48 hours on top of a heater under a strong electric light bulb.
Finally, we blew the bud open enough to qualify when putting it in place.
Practice Careful Transportation
The greatest care for roses must be exercised to protect flowers from accidental injury when being transported.
If they cannot be carried upright in containers partly filled with water, pack them so that rolls of paper support the stems just below the heads.
Individual flowers of delicate texture may be further protected by covering each with a pliofilm bag or wrapping each in tissue paper.
Setting Up For The Exhibit
If the schedule calls for various names, have all your tags prepared in advance.
Check your entry card for each entry after it is in place.
If in doubt about the correct class for any entry, consult the classification committee.
Often, the containers provided at small shows are not such to display flowers to the best advantage.
A single fine rose in a Coca-cola bottle, or a beer can may be just as excellent a specimen as it is in a neat glass bud vase, but it will not look so—not even to a judge.
Provide your own containers for your choicest entries if you can and if the staging committee does not object.
Where an entry includes several specimens, arrange them to look their best.
Stems cut to different lengths will enable you to make a more attractive exhibit than if all are just stuck in together.
Stem lengths should, of course, not vary too much, but just enough to show off the blooms to a good advantage.
Ferns or other cut foliage, usually allowed, placed in the neck of the container, will hold the stems in place.
A flower standing properly upright looks much more impressive than one leaning at a drunken angle against the side of a jar.
So, send your club flower show schedule, and good luck!