Dilip's May 2001 Raleigh Rose Show Page

I am a member of the Raleigh Rose Society, and on May 29, 2001, we had our annual rose show. The theme was A Tribute to the Victorian Age, and, in addition to showing some roses for horticulture, with my friend Renee's help, I came up with designs to enter a traditional and a modern arrangement. You can see the evolution of my design ideas, our results, and some thoughts I have for the future here. Do visit my rose page for more about my roses and organic gardening practices.

Themes

The traditional theme is Silk, Velvet, Satin and Lace, Textures of the Victorian Age. It is further described by: The fabrics of the Victorian age were rich in color and texture. The colors of evening wear ranged from black, to dark blue, to deep purple, to garnet and brown, trimmed with lace and accented with diamonds and other brilliant ornamentation.

The second theme is What happened to Grandmother's Corset?. I'm thinking of using something which is hoop-like or which suggests broken springs as an important part of the arrangement. The description goes on to say, This era marked a sense of freedom in lady's undergarments. It was no longer fashionable to wear the corset. Though this sparked much debate in what was proper, the young women adopted the new fashion to the consternation of the older ladies.

Initial Design Ideas

A week before the show, I had design ideas for both entries. My friend Kathy had a delightful suggestion for the traditional arrangement, involving not using a vase or oasis, but rather a hat with vials inside the hatband. It sounds modern, but in fact the arrangement would still be a line-mass, so would be traditional. I had thought of using a Victorian purple background, painting the hat purple (slightly different shade of the fabric, but blending in to the background to give the roses the focus), and perhaps using pink roses or white ones like Moonstone, which has a light pink edging.

However, my "partner in crime" Renee, who usually is kind enough to help especially with my traditional arrangements, verified my doubts about being able to work through this design. We're now thinking of painting a glass vase an old sterling silver-like color, perhaps with a darker shade inside and a light silver outside. If the weather cooperates, I hope to have almost a dozen of my Big Purple hybrid tea roses ready for the show, and we would use these lovely (and quite fragrant!) purple roses to make a line-mass design. I am thinking of picking up additional dried line material and spray painting it silver, and using fresh plant material like ferns and maybe rose buds. We're thinking of a deep navy blue background.

For the modern one, I took inspiration from an arrangement my friend Sue made at the Sept. 1999 Greensboro rose show (a modern one with the topic of speed - as in rollercoasters), in which she used soft copper tubing. I went to Home Depot and bought 10 feet of 1/2" tubing, the kind used to run water to a refrigerator's ice machine. I bought an unfinished wooden "treasure chest" from Michael's craft store. My thought is to gently uncoil the copper and anchor it within the chest. I would glue several vials, after painting them copper-like, onto the coil. The idea is of an abstract corset, uncoiled after years of not being used, and popping out of a treasure chest in the attic. I had been thinking of a deep navy blue background to contrast with the copper, painting the chest verdigris (the green patina that weathered copper acquires) to match the tubing and give an impression of age (or maybe grey for age and to match with the blue), and using red roses. Later, I'm leaning toward a lovely violet-purple fabric we picked up as background and maybe leaving the chest as unfinished wood or painting it dull black with light strokes of copper to simulate age, and still using red roses.

First Try at Layout - Modern

Here is what it looks like as I am just starting to layout the design Tu night (5/15). The color may not be clear, but the fabric is violet-purple. I would affix bronze colored vials for two or three roses, probably red ones, along the copper tubing. Issues I'm trying to decide on:

• Should I coil the tubing so it starts off from inside rather than beneath the chest? If so, I'll have to secure the tubing by pouring pebbles into the chest or by stapling the tubing to the chest. The coil would start off tight and get looser in wind as it gains height.
• I have a lot of lovely old rose petals; would that make a good addition to put into the empty chest, or would that distract the judges from the fresh roses and fall prey to being too literal to interpreting the theme?
• Should I leave the chest unpainted as the natural wood looks good, or should I paint it black with copper glazing?
• It is a modern arrangement, but is it still too sparse? What kinds of peripheral material can I use? According to the show rules, I can use "fresh, dried, or treated plant material" - and of course inanimate props like the copper tubing.
• Should I skip the vials and take the roses, after they've been sitting in a preservative, and simply hot glue them? The arrangement has to last several hours (from when we're done - around 9a? - till judging is over, around noon), and ideally till the show ends (5p or so).
• Should I have anything besides the "sprung corset", perhaps a rose, coming out of the chest?

Design with Painted Chest - Modern

It's Thursday, two days before the show, and last night I painted the chest. It's walnut brown inside, and the outside is mainly an antique copper, with some brown and flat black brushed in. It looks okay, but I may still paint it more black. I found a verdigris copper antiquing paint kit, but think the green may draw attention away from the roses. I'm not so sure that it looks better than when it was unpainted. My current thoughts are to:

• keep the coil coming from beneath the chest
• not use rose petals, alas. It would be perfect, and I could even put fresh rose petals on the bottom left, but apparently in rose shows, any roses used must be fresh and petals are discouraged. Maybe I could put some other material emanating from the trunk?
• maybe put another design element to give balance to the bottom right - another rose sitting on a pedestal, an abstract shape made out of wood or stone, or some dried plant material?
• use two large white, pink, or red hybrid tea roses (maybe white with pink lined Moonstone or maybe red Mr. Lincoln?) on the tubing loops pointing to the top right, with maybe one bud at the top end of the coil ... or, with the Victorian theme, use old garden roses! I have a lot of pink roses blooming (Jacques Cartier), but they don't hold up as cut flowers for long.

My Garden the Day Before the Show

We've had heavy rain at times and overall overcast and cool weather this past week. My garden was looking neat and well groomed, but I am lucky because it still has a lot of blooms, though they are a bit weathered.

I am thinking of using my Big Purple for the modern arrangement (see the first two shots below). For the modern, I only want two (just maybe three, but I think two would be just right for aesthetics and balance) blooms, and it looks like I'll have two nice Big Purples, and maybe 10 just opening buds. I had originally hoped to use Big Purple in the traditional, so didn't disbud the bush to give me a few large flowers. I still may end up using Big Purple in the traditional arrangement. The rules allow for any privately grown rose, so I may use somebody else's roses for one or both of the arrangements, maybe large pink or white roses, or even red, which looks great against copper (people bring a lot of roses to show for horticulture and at the show decide which to actually enter, so there's always extra roses).

My Alec's Red rose, the third shot below, has lovely huge buds. They may look great in the traditional with other reds, or maybe even as the flowers I use in the modern, if I gently open the buds up a bit with Q-tips. I'm excited for the show!

Results

As you can see on my main rose page, I've summarized the results of the show. My modern won best-of-show in large-flowered modern arrangements, and garnered not just a blue ribbon, but also the ARS Artist Award, a Gold Arrangement Certificate, and a nice oval plate as a prize! My friend Renee helped, especially for the traditional arrangement, which won us a green ribbon. In horticulture, I won three blue ribbons, one red ribbon, and a yellow ribbon in a challenge class.

I think the color of the chest worked out great. Renee had the good idea of moving the chest so it isn't against the back corner of the niche, but in a bit, helping to fill up the niche. She also rebent the copper slightly to make the curves more graceful. It was delightful being able to use my own roses in my arrangement - and getting such lovely results, and a nice award!

Ideas for the Future

What did I learn and what are some thoughts for future arrangements? Here are some ideas:

• Copper is a great material! The judge said he had seen copper used before but not always so effectively - in our case, he liked how the chest anchored it and gave it context. I'd like to use copper again with red roses, as red against copper is striking. I wonder if I can buy flexible copper tubing in smaller sizes or easily cut it, and maybe experiment with multiple smaller coils. It's fun doing modern arrangements and the challenge is thinking "outside the box" and finding alternate materials to really form a sculpture. I loved using PVC tubing in last May's show, and am sure I'll use it again. I certainly don't want to overuse either material - especially copper, it seems to me, used too often can dull (tarnish :-) ?) my creativity.
• I have a "flower aquarium" where you build an arrangement and seal it inside a glass ball. I'd love to integrate it into a future modern arrangement. I also would love to have a hanging arrangement at some point, maybe with some thin PVC or other support painted to match the background fabric and with stiffened clear wire of some sort, or thin copper wire painted the background color, holding roses in mid-air. Another idea for a modern arrangement is to have some roses partially underwater; I'd have to test to make sure that the variety I use fares well at least for a few hours underwater.
• I have some "crazy technology" ideas I probably will never use, as they would really be more a novelty and take away from the roses. I love Sonique, software which plays and visualizes music into lovely designs. It would be cool to have a laptop with rose imagery in Sonique (which has a "liquid" plug-in that shows images in turn as if they are underwater), playing quiet music, and maybe even have a second display, a small 1.5" or 2" screen attached with a black cable that could be bent artistically and snake up toward the top of the niche. I believe that electronics are not out of bounds, especially for modern avant-garde arrangements! A much further-out idea is to use technology that is being developed for electronic paper. I could have a series of rose images and use the "paper" as my background, and have it slowly change over time.
• Rose petals would have been great in this modern arrangement, but rose society arrangements require fresh roses - and intact, I believe. Maybe I should try some garden show arrangements, maybe at our annual fall state fair, and play with ideas like using petals.
• I used to have the "problem" of being too literal in my interpretation of themes, but have come to realize that, especially for traditional arrangements, the theme may - or, apparently, may not - be simply a guide for the kinds of colors and line material used. The theme is still, at least to me (if only parenthetically, it seems, to the judges), helpful for designing the modern arrangements.
• Rosemary makes a great line material, and herbs symbolically go well with roses, anyway, especially in a traditional arrangement. Rosemary ends flop and droop, so we cut the ends off. I would like to try tightly winding wire around rosemary, and shaping it for the basis of a line arrangement perhaps as a flowing S-shape Hogarth curve. We could do this the day before a show.
• It would be fun to read some books on flower arranging, especially for more background on traditional forms.
• I'd like to do more line arrangements, as they typically use the fewest roses of all traditional (line, line-mass, or mass) types. I'd like to also be self-sufficient in doing our arrangements and not rely on extra roses others have brought in (unless I start trying my hand at mini arrangements, since other than Gourmet Popcorn, I don't grow any minis), so perhaps next year at pruning time, may very well pick a few hybrid tea bushes and not prune them severely to get exhibition quality roses, but prune them moderately to get flowers sooner and more in bulk, even if not all to exhibition quality - but still good for arrangements.
• It takes longer in the morning to cut your flowers, even if you have few to show, than might be expected. I woke up at 5:30a and got to the show by 7:20 or so (it is about a 25-minute drive away), but we always rush to get our roses ready for horticulture (and I never end up with time to really groom my entries) and make two arrangements by 10a. Next year I will aim to wake up 30-45 minutes earlier; there was enough light for me to start cutting roses before 6a.
• One thing which did help is for me to get a bit better organized. The week before this show, I bought a nice craft supply box, and stocked it in an organized way with items to groom roses (cotton balls and small pieces of panty hose - and even a small container of water - to wipe away any stains, Q-tips to help pry open blooms that are too tight, wedging material like foam pellets to help specimens to stand upright, and deckle-edged scissors to naturalistically cut away any leaf blemishes; I need to add a small pair of straight scissors, too, and maybe an exacto knife), put together arrangements (a glue gun with glue sticks, floral wire - uncoated and wrapped in green cloth both, floral clips to help stake materials into oasis if they become loose, rose shears, and vials - both painted to match my arrangement and some clear), and make entries in the show (I didn't have entry tags, but now do for next year; I also stock pens, address labels and rubber bands for the entry tags, a booklet like ARS' annual Handbook for Selecting Roses to make sure that rose names are spelled correctly and entered in the correct classes; and even have some business cards so people who ask can find me and my rose pages on the internet). (There is a nice article available online, A Peek Inside My Grooming Kit written by Kitty Belendez of the Los Angeles Rose Society.) I separately store dried line material, spray paint, a variety of vases and materials like PVC tubing, oasis (remember to soak it in water overnight before using!), and clean buckets to transport roses.
• What helped the most this time, and reduced stress, was having much of the work - picking out color choices for fabric and materials, getting painting done, and getting the modern sculpture essentially done, including gluing on the vials - done several days in advance. I wish there were more we could do for the traditional arrangement in advance, but I'm afraid to start assembling it before the show, as it raises transportation and freshness concerns.

Created: May 15, 2001

Last updated: May 21, 2001