RHA TEST GARDEN TO SPRAY OR NOT TO SPRAY

General Discussion
1

Hello Rha members,

Shouldn’t we first talk about our own RHA test garden in regards to spray or not to spray? It’s my understanding and I could be wrong is that our test garden is sprayed. I’m curious how many roses were entered in our rha test garden for years 2009, 2010, 2011 and how many will be submitted this year. Our web site shows that no awards have been granted since 2002. I suspect that may be due to the site not being updated.

I have been judging the AOE garden and the AARS garden for the last several years. One thing that amazed me was the number of cultivars in the AARS garden that were completely devoid of Black Spot during there trial period. Almost nothing and I mean nothing is free from black spot in the Dallas Metroplex. Even the Earth Kind roses will suffer some leaf loss due to black spot. I was really disapointed when the AARS announced a few weeks ago the termination of the AARS test gardens.

My vote would be to put a stake in the ground for both test gardens and say effective 2014 (?) the aoe and rha test gardens will be no spray gardens. I have been working on a web site, with virtually no web site building skills, to show case the roses being evaluated in test gardens within a days drive to Dallas. My thought was most rosarians who don’t live close to test gardens might like to see the roses being evaluated during there trial period. The only sections ready for use are the 2010 aoe entries and the 2011 entries. If you are interested in seeing those cultivars go to www.billcashin.com . On the right hand side of the home page under categories you can click 2010 aoe or 2011 aoe to view the pictures. I will be adding pictures continually during this growing season. Let me know what you think.

bill cashin

Argyle, Texas

2

Bill, before you post those photos, you may want to read the Introducing Roses thread where introductions starting the clock on ability to patent new varieties is discussed. I don’t know if publishing those photos might make it difficult or impossible for someone to patent a promising new seedling. I’d hate finding out an innocently published photograph prevented someone from profiting for their creation.

3

As far as I can see there is no identifying information on the pictures other than the year they were entered in the trials. I don’t think that should cause a problem. Some pretty ones in the pipeline if they do well!