Category: Speaker Presentations

Howard Carman’s “Propagating Roses From Cuttings”

Howard Carman, ARS Tenarky District Director
On Sunday, July 12, 2026, our special guest speaker Howard Carman shared his experiences with propagating roses from cuttings, hybridizing, and the journey that turned a hobby into a lifelong passion for roses. Howard is kind enough to share his presentation with us.

Click here to see Howard’s presentation.

Howard has lived in Big Spring, Kentucky his entire life and began growing roses in 1997 after being inspired by the Kentucky State Fair. What started with a few roses quickly turned into a lifelong passion that led him to join both the Louisville Rose Society and the American Rose Society. Over the years, he expanded his garden to more than 200 roses, built a homemade greenhouse, became a horticulture judge in 2004, and today still grows around 125 roses including hybrid teas, floribundas, shrubs, miniatures, and minifloras.

One of Howard’s Seedlings
Howard is a past president and current treasurer of the Louisville Rose Society and currently serves as the Tenarky District Director, beginning his term in 2024. His love of roses has also led him into propagation and hybridizing, with two roses now registered with the ARS — the miniature “Miss Paula,” a sport of Miss Flippins, and the miniflora “Anna Mae,” named in honor of his mother.

Spenser Thomas, Great Big Plants video presentation

Spenser Thomas, soil-health focused product manager at Great Big Plants

The meeting of the Nashville Rose Society on May 3, 2026, featured a video that Spenser Thomas, soil-health focused product manager at Great Big Plants, has recorded for us on Nashville specific soil health and nutrient management. Spenser is the soil-health focused product manager at Great Big Plants, where he specializes in developing biologically supportive inputs designed to improve plant performance from the soil up. His work centers on compost extracts and soil-based solutions that enhance nutrient efficiency, root development, and overall plant vitality.

Spenser has recorded a Nashville specific soil health and nutrient management presentation that will be shown at the May meeting. Click Nashville Rose Society Great Big Roses & Flowers to view Spenser’s presentation.

With a deep interest in both flowering plants and high-yield vegetable crops, Spenser works to help growers achieve healthier growth and more consistent performance by optimizing the underlying soil system. His approach prioritizes long-term soil health over short-term synthetic feeding, focusing on practical, results-driven outcomes for home gardeners and enthusiasts alike.

Spenser is particularly focused on making soil science more accessible to the public. By helping gardeners understand the complex interactions between biology, organic matter, and minerals, he aims to provide the tools necessary to cultivate stronger, more resilient plants through a “soil-first” philosophy.

Spenser’s products are available on his website Great Big Plants and on Amazon.

Jeff and Cindy Garrett – Disease Resistant Rose Study

The Nashville Rose Society was honored, once again, to have Jeff and Cindy Garrett as our guest speakers at the August 11, 2024, monthly meeting. In addition to focusing on how to participate in the annual ARS Roses In Review program, Jeff discussed the work that he and Cindy are doing to test and evaluate disease resistant, specifically blackspot, roses in their garden.

Jeff and Cindy moved to their current home on Lake Chickamauga in 1989. Over the years they have continued to develop their landscape to its current capacity of just over 350 roses. Jeff and Cindy have allocated some of that space in their garden to test select varieties of roses in large pots. They change some of the varieties each year. They do fertilize and water, but do not spray for disease. Each year they evaluate which roses are most disease resistant.

Jeff and Cindy have both served their local society, the Tri-State Rose Society of Chattanooga, as President on numerous occasions. Currently they are editors of their local society newsletter, “Basal Breaks”. The Garretts have been honored with the Bronze Medal from their local society.

Click here for Jeff and Cindy’s presentation on Disease Resistant Roses – Fact or Fiction!

Here you will find a list (pdf) of roses in Jeff and Cindy’s test garden.

July 10, 2-4:30 – Susan Lyell Young, “Old Garden Roses” with YouTube Garden Tour

Susan Lyell Young spoke to the Nasvhille Rose Society on July 10, 2022. Click here to view her garden tour with Volunteer Gardener on Nashville Public Television (NPT).
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NOTE! The July meeting of the Nashville Rose Society will be held on July 10, 2022. It is moved to the second Sunday of the month due to the July 4th holiday. The meeting will be held in the Potter Room at Cheekwood Estate & Garden.

Susan Lyell Young, owner of Restoration Rose
Our speaker, Susan Lyell Young, will discuss the development and hybridization of roses and her efforts to collect them from cemeteries and old homes in Louisiana and California.

Susan is a native Nashvillian. She lives in the Belmont area in the home her grandfather built in 1928. She has been gardening all of her life and growing roses for the last 10 years. She does not use chemical pesticides or fertilizers and believes that Mother Nature finds the perfect balance when left alone to do her thing.

Susan is on a mission to encourage folks to grow roses in their gardens. Not the roses seen at big box stores nor the modern roses that require endless pampering but the antique and heirloom healthy hardy shrubs that have been grown in gardens for hundreds of years. She has traveled all over the country collecting rare varieties so that she can propagate them and get them into the hands of interested gardeners and public rose gardens, preserving the DNA of these fragrant garden workhorses for future generations of admirers and hybridizers.

She estimates she has grown and loved more than 1500 roses over the years but she is particularly fond of the roses bred for Southern gardens — the Teas, China’s and Noisettes. Her home garden has roses and all sorts of their companion plants.

In the spring of 2019 Susan launched her line of clean beauty products infused with the organic roses she grows. You may find her rose goodness at www.restorationrose.com.

Please plan to join us. Admission to Cheekwood is not required – let the gate attendant know that you are attending the NRS Meeting in the Potter Room.

Teresa Byington’s “Cottage Gardening” Presentation

Teresa Byington’s Bloom Thyme Cottage Garden
Teresa Byington took us on a tour of her garden, Bloom Thyme Cottage Garden at the November 7, 2021, monthly meeting of the Nashville Rose Society. The Bloom Thyme Cottage Garden, which Teresa has tended for 30+ years, is a large cottage garden that weaves together her love of roses – from the oldest to the most modern shrubs and their garden companions. Roses alongside annuals, herbs, shrubs, trees, perennials and a few veggies fill this garden.

Click here to read the story of Teresa’s garden as told to Garden Gate Magazine, February 2022 issue.

Teresa was kind enough to let us record her GoToMeeting presentation that is filled with cottage garden history, gardening advice and plant recommendations. You can revisit Teresa’s presentation by clicking here.