It was with great anticipation I eagerly awaited to attend opening day of Select Roses in Langley, British Columbia.  In my previous garden I had 12 roses, most of them were there when we bought the house 17 years ago and the others I added as I rescued some poor, thorny stick from the clearance section, so I admit at this point I had never been to Select Roses.  We bought our new house in December 2013 and I wanted to add a new quality rose to the garden.  When we decided to sell I dug up my prize-winning roses:  Peter Mayle, Irish Gold, Peace, and an unidentified beauty that is either Chicago Peace or Love and Peace, the rest were given to my rose friends in my garden club, this way I knew they had good homes incase the new owner was not a gardener.  I decided I was going to buy a pink rose as I felt pink would be a good compliment to Peter Mayle that blooms dark pink, Peace is a cream colour and Irish Gold is yellow, my unidentified rose blooms with massive yellow blended to pink blooms.  My cousin to had a new garden and was just as excited as I was to add roses to her space.

Cousins out for the seasonal opening of Select Roses 

We got to Select Roses just in time to watch Brad Jalbert give a pruning demonstration.  He took a bushy rose that had been in the greenhouse all winter and expertly showed us how to prune away all the spindly growth and the top growth.  Even though the top growth is new its where disease can start and needs to be removed. Brad recommends to prune the rose so only the strong canes remain and he took off 50% of the top growth from the new canes.  This will ensure a healthy strong plant for the rest of the season.  He noted for old roses like mine not to prune into the old wood as this can damage the plant and it will not grow properly let a lone bloom.

Brad Jalbert, Expert Rose Grower, note the pruners, always ready to work his magic!

After the pruning demonstration we walked around the nursery, even the pouring rain could not dampen our spirits as we looked at floribundas, hybrid teas, climbers, shrub roses, and David Austin’s, it was amazing!  

The nursery was clean and all the plants were nicely laid out and organized, each on had a tag showing it in bloom with information about the rose.

Me trying to decide with my aunt and uncle looking on