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Title: Roses are a no-show for Portland Rose Festival
Source:
Oregon Live
URL Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/rosefest/ ... ty_grows_for_the_portland.html
Published: May 29, 2011
Author: Kym Pokorny
Post Date: 2011-05-29 14:34:01 by Original_Intent
Ping List: *Agriculture-Environment* Subscribe to *Agriculture-Environment*
Keywords: Glowbull, Warming, My, Asterisk
Views: 224
Comments: 9
Roses are late this year, leaving the city's signature parks like Peninsula Park Rose Garden looking more like March than nearly June."A rose! Ah, ha, ha!" whooped Hillary Joseph, bending over to inspect a button of orange, the only color bobbing in an aggressive sea of green at the International Rose Test Garden at Washington Park, where the great majority of approximately 8,500 roses are certain to be a no-show for the Portland Rose Festival. The wishy-washy sun of spring has been unkind to the warm-blooded plants. A season of record rainfall and well-below average high temperatures make 2011 the latest-blooming rose season in memory. Only six days rose above 60 degrees; on average, there are 26. "The weather is crazy," says Gretchen Humphrey, drawing out the word like pulling a piece of taffy. As chair of the Portland Rose Society Show, she's holding out hope for a warm spell to get the pouting roses to cooperate. But the forecast of continued cool and rainy days makes the chances of that happening extremely unlikely. If we had decent weather of 70 to 80 for at least 10 days, we'd be in great shape, says Harry Landers, curator of the International Rose Test Garden, where the roses have not been this late since he started keeping track 22 years ago. Roses are a no-show for Portland Rose Festival
Thomas Wickboldt, Joseph's friend from San Francisco, was good-natured about missing Portland's iconic flower. "Since it's the City of Roses, it would be nice to see the roses. But it's not that big of a deal." 
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Gretchen Humphrey has won Queen of the Show three times for the Portland Rose Festival. But her garden this year is a far cry from how it looked last year about this time.
Regular show competitors, such as John Sitton of Albany, are disappointed.
"I don't remember a later growing season when it comes to roses. This is the latest -- by far," says Sitton, who started his garden 28 years ago and now has 300 roses. "I'm really worried about the Portland show. I love to compete. My goal is to win the big queen award, but I don't believe I will have anything to show."
At least, disease hasn't been an issue, he says, though black spot could be a problem once temperatures climb.
The lack of roses won't affect the Grand Floral Parade floats, which are pinned with blossoms from South America. Attendance is not likely to suffer, either, according to Jenna Cerruti, a Rose Festival spokesperson.
More worrisome is the 16-year-old Portland Best Rose event to be held June 12 at the Washington Park test garden. About 100 judges will rank varieties in a blind contest to come up with the city's finest flower. The day before, the public is invited to vote for People's Choice.
"We'll go ahead with it whether there are roses or not," says Dave Etchepare, manager of Dennis' 7 Dees and Rose Festival board members. "We will judge foliage if we have to."
"It will be a little odd to judge," says Louise Clements, a perennial participant and owner of Heirloom Roses in St. Paul, who hasn't seen a spring like this in the 30-some years since she and her late husband John started the nursery. Of the 3,000 bushes in the display garden, only 'Mary Queen of Scots' and climbing 'Gold Badge' are showing any color.
The situation is just as dire at all three of Portland's official rose gardens, where thousands and thousands of sun-starved shrubs refuse to cooperate. Blog and Twitter chatter indicate the same situation with home gardeners. A few lucky ones crowed about their success, but even they admitted flowers came from just one or two plants, and were few and far apart.
The question of when roses will finally appear for visitors to the International Rose Test Garden is unanswerable.
"Only God knows," Landers says. "People want to get so specific; like June 2 at 5 p.m. I wish I had a good idea, but, as with all gardening, it's up to the weather. All you can do is complain."
And wait.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
#2. To: Original_Intent (#0)
Texas would loooooooove to trade some weather with them. It's already 93/96 down here, with zero relief or rain in sight.
At 12:01 PM the Portland Airport Weather Station is reporting 50 degrees. The last two Springs have been colder and wetter than normal, but this one takes the cake. Our highest temperature so far, for 1 day, was 74 degrees. Normally we are hitting the 70's every day by now with some going into the low to mid 80's. I know my Aunt in Billings has noticed it as well - they were down into the mid 30's last night and she has lost some of her veggie garden to the cold and wet. Billings is along the same general path for weather as I am here in the Portland Metro area. This is the end of May and I need a jacket to go outside for very long. I wouldn't mind a few of those 93 days about now. I think last summer we had the fewest number of sub 90 days in recent records.
The major source of our water, Lake Travis (one of the Highland Lakes, created by various dams built during the Depression along the Colorado River) is now down 20' from normal, and dropping one additional foot each week. Those islands are called the Sometimes Islands...
I've seen that here in California. I feel for your state.
We seem to be under every other sort of attack, why not HAARP us, too?
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