Yet another sign of the times . . . My local rose society, thriving and very visible in the community when I moved here 13 years ago, is now moribund. This year, for the first time since it was organized, the society voted to cancel its annual rose show. I suspect that the same will be the case 2012 and in subsequent years. In fact, prospects for the survival of the society itself look grim.

An array of factors have contributed to this sad state of affairs: The economy (obviously); changing tastes; the inability to attract new members as the existing core of stalwarts ages/dwindles; environmental concerns (ie, the common belief that all roses are disease-prone prima donnas), etc.

It seems to me that participation in all gardening organizations has taken a nosedive locally. Gardening is becoming an increasingly difficult and frustrating endeavor. Rainfall here is now at a 13+ inch deficit for the year. If my experience/observation is accurate, these alarmingly dry conditions are exacerbating the wildlife pressures I've always had. Deer and rabbits are flocking to cultivated space in numbers I've not seen before.

Sorry if I veered off topic. Grabbed an opportunity to ventilate, I guess, and just ran with it.

That is sad. With the current economy, I'm surprised that more people aren't gardening, rather than less. If it's too expensive to go on a family vacation, why not vacation in your back yard? Investing a little money each year, in flowers, shrubs, roses, patio blocks, etc. would give people a wonderful place to enjoy family life and get away from everyday stress.

I started gardening a few years ago and not only do I love it, but it's made our yard much more inviting...and we use it more often. Now, in the evenings, my husband and I go sit outside and enjoy the flowers, look at the stars and are entertained by the barn kitties, who seem to like to 'enjoy' the garden with us :)

Weather and other factors do make gardening more difficult some years, but I think many of our friends don't want to commit the time, to a garden. I find this sad, because they would probably enjoy it very much, if they made the time for it. Meanwhile, two hours each way to the lake every weekend...that would easily maintain a nice garden/patio area...and save them a lot of money on gas, too!

I think there may be something else at work here. Gardens require a person to stay in one place. It takes several years to get a garden set up, planted, etc. and fewer and fewer people are able to do this.

I was thinking about this just the other day. Roses, tropical fruit, bromeliads,native plants, orchids etc are all in my area of interest and all have clubs in the area. As much as I support the idea I cannot rationalize joining all of them because I'd never be able to get to meetings and it would add up to a bit of money annually.

What I try and do as much as possible is to attend their shows and buy from their vendors who come from all over the state. Cool Roses from West Palm Beach FL came to a local Garden Club event and brought me Abraham Darby on Fortuniana because I called them and asked for it.

As much as supporting clubs it is so important to support small growers who have been hit hard in this economy. Or am I rationalizing buying more plants?

I'm not sure clubs are disbanding here in Florida because there are so many retirees interested in gardens and yes roses. In my small town there are both a Mens Garden Club and a Womens, both are very active.

Frankly the internet may be to blame for less clubs. I've gotten information here and other forums that I would have had to get elsewhere, clubs or classes IOW.

Blame GardenWeb? lol

Denise

Sorry to hear this, lerosier. There are 3 societies in my area and all of them are struggling. There's been a lot of talk lately about combining them all into one group but there's also been resistance to that idea and I fear if we do this we'll lose even more members. Don't know what will happen in the next year.

This really is sad news; I've noticed it too; when I attended the rose trial garden in Farmers Branch last Fall, it seemed as if all the volunteers and rose club people were older. I talked to one older gentleman volunteer who used to have an open house for his day lily garden every summer. He donated all of his hundreds of day lilies to the park as he just can't do it anymore.

Buying from the smaller vendors has been such a pleasure for me, it seems like they bend over backwards to make sure everything is right, and sure am doing what I can to help keep them going!

I heartily agree with what Lavender Lass wrote. About the failure of rose societies, I don't know. Are roses or gardening out of fashion? Are too many people worried about having/keeping/getting a home, and so unable or unwilling to invest in a garden?

I just visited a friend of mine, who also likes to garden (one of the few) and his yard is beautiful. He and his wife are not rose gardeners, but they have a few old climbers that came with the house...and they're big, dark pink and lovely. They have a big backyard, with a nice vegetable garden, but mainly it's the way they've screened their yard, with trees and shrubs that is really wonderful. They just added a covered patio area last summer and it's a great space to enjoy the summer.

Sitting back there is like sitting in a park...and they're only a block and a half from one of the busiest streets in town. It's quiet, cool, green and shared by their hens, a few rabbits and several birds, bugs, butterflies and one very patient, somewhat retired, Blue Healer. He's very tolerant of 'the girls' but finally goes in and pushes them out with his nose, when those chickens end up in HIS doghouse :)

It is always sad when a rose society or any gardening group goes dark. But this is the history of volunteer groups in the modern world. Each generation has successively less time and more opportunities to choose from a varied menu of activities. Also, things like rose shows and rose celebrations are labor intensive; you need a dedicated cadre of persons to do it year after year. And people burn out. In my own rose society about a third are active members (although only a small percentage is willing to hold office); and two thirds never show up at meetings, attend conferences, or participate in any active form. Eventually the office holding ten will start to leave as age and health issues take precedence; and the gardens will go as people decline in vigor or move into assisted living that does not permit gardening with roses or anything else that is not low maintenance.

We are at the tail end of a great expansion of gardens and roses. The recession economically is being matched by a recessional among rose availability and rosarians as well. I wish it were otherwise, but I think a Rosarian Dark Ages has begun anew.

We are at the tail end of a great expansion of gardens and roses. The recession economically is being matched by a recessional among rose availability and rosarians as well. I wish it were otherwise, but I think a Rosarian Dark Ages has begun anew.

May I gently disagree? The baby boomers retirement has been slowed by the Great Recession but it cannot be stopped entirely. Retirement days cannot be entirely wasted, ahem, spent on the golf course or tennis court. Some multi-thousands have been waiting to have enough free time to garden and they will come.

I am part of that early wave and I love to garden. But times have changed a little. Membership groups will have to include the internet as well as FTF (face-to-face) meetings. Rose societies will flourish if they offer something not obtainable elsewhere: garden tours, speakers on topics of interest, garden shows with specialty vendors.

I belong to a local group AAUW (American Association of University Women) and our local branch has the largest membership in the state. I am one of the younger members but every month there are more boomers joining. Last year one speaker's topic was Native Plants in Your Yard, it could easily have been Roses in the Florida Yard.

Maybe Florida is different than other states with the number of people with the time to join special interest groups but not by much.

I am optimistic that rose societies will continue but the way of participating may change.

Denise

Denise--I certainly hope that you are correct in your assessment. In the meantime, I am stressing programs in our rose society that will enable people to engage in pass- along-plant activities through alternate methods of plant propagation, budding plants and sharing and distributing rare roses.

I agree with Denise - not only about baby boomers gardening, but in my town I have observed a new phenomenon. As our new Mexican and Latin American immigrants get enough money, they move out of the high density apartment neighborhood where most of them start living. At first, in our neighborhood we saw groups of men moving into single family houses. That was about 10 years ago. Then (in the same houses) I noticed that the women and children started appearing. Of course, this helped some problems that had been occurring around the all male households - flower pots appeared, the area was cleaned up, etc.

Now, we are seeing single immigrant families moving into some very small houses in our neighborhood. One that has given me much pleasure lately is a very small bungalow (actually it is a duplex) built in 1940 that is 1/3rd of a block from the freeway. Previously it was Section 8 housing, and inhabited by drug addicts. A new landlord bought it, fixed it up, and put it on the market at market rental rates. A Mexican family is renting it. It has a very small front yard which was previously all weeds. Well, that front yard is amazing - they are growing corn, tomatoes, and squashes. In addition, there are at least a half dozen roses, ditto agapanthas, salvia, and lots of other flowers. I have been meaning to take a picture of it, it is so beautiful.

My point is, it is not just the aging baby boomer generation that is gardening - it is our young immigrants, who, as soon as they get 4 square feet of land, are gardening for food and beauty. I am not worried about gardening dying out!

Jackie

Here are pics of the little garden I mentioned above:{{gwi:297749}}

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Jackie, love your pictures - this is inspiring and maybe shows what is to come. I too live in an older neighborhood with immigrants moving in, they are hard working and good neighbors. Across from us is a neighbor from Viet Nam, he has recently retired and his front yard is gorgeous, looks very cottage looking - but his back yard is special, really different, lots of plants I've never heard of. We trade plants back and forth. He got a good deal on windows at Home Depot, built a greenhouse on his patio, the windows don't match, but it came out so cool, I love to visit him. I have to laugh, he worked so hard to get his two children through college, they got married, moved, and had children; when we go to their parties there is, of course vietnamese food, but also hot dogs and potato chips for the little kids. Doesn't take them long to get the American way!

Our Hispanic neighbors at this point are working long hours, own a landscape maintenance company, their front yard is cool, but not too much in the back yet.

ogrose

Something that has occurred to me before is that gardening cuts across all social lines. Rich and poor, male and female, educated and illiterate, young and old, black and white and every other hue: everyone gardens. This is one of its beauties.
Perhaps I've told this story before. Once I helped for a day with a beginning English as a Second Language class. The students were immigrants from all over the world; I was given a small group of women and we were supposed to converse. I happened to have with me a bouquet of daffodils from my garden and used it to start a conversation about gardening. The response was passionate. These women had all had gardens, and they talked about them eagerly, struggling to express themselves with their very limited English. I've never experienced such a striking example of how universal the love of gardening is.

I have to say I am not sure that the lack of interest in gardening clubs indicates a lack of interest in gardening.

I'm in my mid thirties and most of my friends garden to some extent or other, several even have fairly specific interests (tropicals, heirloom vegtables, roses, etc.)

However most of us have also looked into our local gardening clubs and come to the conclusion that they either arent interested in younger members with limited time (cause we all work) or have nothing to offer or both.

Here in Pinellas County our Rose Society died, the closest now is across the bridge in Tampa. HOWEVER- there is the Heritage Rose Society in Lakeland, at Fla. Southern College, a good hour on I-4 away, and I go every month to their meetings and wouldn't miss it.... and most of the large membership does the same, drive long distances to attend... their members run the gamut in age, from quite young to old crows like me.... they have programs and experts worth going for, Dr. Manners is there with his wealth of knowledge, and a lot of the members are experts, and they have the extensive rose-gardens surrounding the campus.. also they raise and graft the OGRs onto Fortuniana and have sales, these are unobtainable anywhere else, and Fort. is essential in Fla.....they have a raffle every meeting, we all bring a plant and I have come home with some nice OGRs.... and did I mention the "Cookie Room"?? LOL....sally

O Sally, I'll have to visit there someday. Sounds great.

Jim, ogrose, Melissa, and vissara - I agree with you - Sharing passalong plants is what saved many OGRs after the commercial rose nurseries abandoned them in the first half of the 20th century. I think the garden I posted pictures of is a REAL cottage garden - they need the food, and of course they are not spraying poisons all over the roses because: a) it is too expensive, and b) it would contaminate the vegetables. I saw very little disease in this garden.

It amuses me that this real cottage garden is actually along the lines of what is now being promoted as "organic" gardening, except without the research papers, elaborate composting (did you know that leaf litter will compost itself if you leave it alone?), and long lists of what you must do and not do.

vissara - I totally hear you about how rose & gardening clubs may be declining for reasons other than a lack of interest in gardening. I am of the baby boom generation, but was lucky enough to retire at 55. I immediately joined my local ARS society. The ladies (99% were females) were very nice, and even had some interesting speakers, but their main interest was the "rose show", which of course has more in common with the "who can grow the largest hog for the county fair" competition than it does with being interested in having a lovely garden. So, I almost never go. They have a lovely display garden, but every year they tear out 30% of the roses and replace them with the "newest and best" hot ones just on the market - it is so sad and such a waste of energy!

Jackie

Jackie

thanks for taking the time to photograph and post those gorgeous photos of a wonderful garden. LOVE that piecrust windowsill.

Denise

I think part of all this may just be the wheel of Fashion. I live in Northern California, and there seems to be a great deal of interest among young people, especially young families, in growing one's own food. In San Francisco (I don't live there, but I subscribe to their newspaper), the garden pages seem to spend most of their time on that and on Urban Farming,and Going Green. I have no problem with any of those subjects, but there has gotten to be less and less in that paper about the kind of gardening some of the rest of us are interested in. This is all natural, as Fashion is always with us, its object of interest being the only thing that changes. I also think that it is natural that these types of gardening are the focus now - people are concerned about the planet's dwindling resources, climate change and its effects, and corporate irresponsibility. I believe and hope, however, that interest in Old Roses will stay alive, though it may go a bit dormant for awhile.

I work as a volunteer at the Historic Rose Garden in the Old Sacramento City Cemetery, and that is certainly a labor of love. We do have a major event every Spring, that being the Open Garden and Rose Sale. It's not a "Rose Show", except in the sense that the whole garden is a wonderful "show". I don't think we indulge in any "one-up-man-ship", as all the roses are of interest to us, although we are, of course, proud of them. People come to that event from miles around, partly to see the garden at its best, and partly to buy the rose plants that are grown from cuttings from some of the garden's own roses, many of which are no longer available commercially. The atmosphere on that day is really wonderful - new people being amazed at the size and beauty of the place, returning people enjoying seeing old rose friends, and everyone just enjoying themselves. AND... of course, a real rush to buy the plant (or plants) you've always wanted! So I remain optimistic -- call me cock-eyed!

Laura

Yes,it is sad. I always go to my daughters in Wichita,Ks to the garden show and my daughter told me she understood they are going to discontinue it. I always look,attend classes and I always bought something. The parking lots were always full but they said the economy they just cannot afford doing it anymore

I agree with the others that gardening is still quite popular, but the demographics of clubs is changing in many areas. Here the garden clubs are not much more than social groups for the well to do and bored ladies. It astonishes me that the ladies here don't actually work in their gardens, they have other people do it then show up for the luncheon's and garden tours. It's all about being seen.The rest of us chit chat online or at the farmers markets and swap plants and tips with friends.