Author: NRS Webmaster

As Marty likes to say, it is time to put the kids to bed, in other words, winterize the roses.

Please plan to attend the workday at the Cheekwood Rose Study Garden on Monday, December 7, 2020, from 9:00am – 12:00, to help get the roses ready for winter. We will be doing general cleanup, check pH and add lime if needed, then mound up mulch around bushes. If you are new to roses, this is the perfect time to learn what you need to do to make sure your roses survive the winter. You do not need to be a member of the Nashville Rose Society.

We will need to enter Cheekwood through the back gate off of Cheek Road. Cheekwood requires face covering and names must be on the list to enter. If you plan to come, send your name and contact information to Robert Bowen so that your name will be on the the gate entry list.

Dress warmly – highs in the 40’s but partly sunny – and bring your pruners and gloves.

---

The last meeting of 2020 will be held on December 6 at 2:00pm. The meeting will be virtual using GoToMeeting.

It would be fun if everyone would “Dress Up for the Holidays” and come to the meeting in a holiday outfit. It could be an ugly Christmas sweater, a Santa Claus look-a-like outfit, rain deer antlers, or an elf costume – whatever you have that has a holiday/Christmas theme.

For our program, Mary Hext will present “Christmas Roses: Legends and Traditions”. She will show various roses that have ties to Christmas and tell the Christmas tradition that each rose was named for.

Afterwards, awards will be presented to two outstanding members.

Nancy Jones will close the meeting with a Christmas message.

For more information on how to log into GoToMeeting, please see Marty Reich’s email to NRS members. If you would like to attend as a guest, please submit your request on the Ask a Consulting Rosarian form on the website.

---

Sarah Edmonds, Historic Garden Manager for the Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage, is our guest speaker for the November meeting of the Nashville Rose Society. The virtual meeting will be held at on November 1, 2020, at 2:00pm using the GoToMeeting app.

Since the construction of the first Hermitage mansion in 1819, the site of Rachel Jackson’s garden has seen several revisions and redesigns, most associated with work on the house itself. The gardens fortune’s also rose and fell based on enslaved peoples labor, budgets, staffing, site priorities, natural disasters, visitor-ship, and shifts due to the public interest in Andrew Jackson, tourism, world wars, and right up to today’ global public health concerns.

As the design of the Hermitage changed architecturally, the design of both the yard and garden near the house evolved from a protected area surrounding the house into more specialized, subdivided areas. The early garden was undoubtedly created in part because of Rachel’s fondness of flowers, including what we now call Old Garden Roses (defined by the ARS as types of roses that existed prior to 1867). One visitor will remark that he had never met anyone more enthusiastically fond of flowers than Rachel Jackson. Rachael would often give nosegays of flowers to guest as a token of her hospitality.

Here we are 200 years later, let’s explore how the garden has grown!

For more information on the Hermitage, visit thehermitage.com, like their FB Page, and follow on Instagram.

More information on how to log into GoToMeeting, please see Marty Reich’s email to NRS members. If you would like to attend as a guest, please submit your request on the Ask a Consulting Rosarian form on the website.

---

Ron Daniels, co-president of the Nashville Rose Society, has canceled his open his garden on Saturday, October 10, due to the rain in the forecast.

---