Gregg Lowery Pruning Demonstration
The Ventura County Rose Society and the Gold Coast Heritage Rose Group will sponsor a pruning demonstration of Old Garden Roses (OGR) on January 9th, 2010 at the Stagecoach Inn Museum Rose Garden, starting a 9:00 a.m. Gregg Lowery is the owner /operator of Vintage Gardens, a Northern California OGR nursery, with over 2000 cultivars available for purchase on a rotating basis. Gregg has been in the forefront of efforts to preserve Old Garden Roses for the sake of maintaining a diverse genetic pool, but also for their historic and intrinsic interest.
His hands-on work and observations have led him to the conclusion that OGRs are best served by minimalist activity in pruning them; he asserts that most pruning efforts are for the benefit of the gardener rather than the benefit of the rose bush. The time honored practice of reducing the rose bush to a mere memory of itself tends to be counter-productive with many old garden roses and actually destructive to others; they must spend their energy in re-growing rather than re-blooming. Many roses commonly thought of as smallish or mid-size actually are genetically programmed to assume much larger shapes and, consequently, need not to be ‘whacked’ to the ground each year.
Old practices such as defoliation and removal of all possible leaves have also been called into question, since dead leaves furnish no sustenance to insect or fungal pests. If you are ready for a revisionist outlook on rose pruning, with an emphasis on working with nature as opposed to opposing it, this demonstration is a must-see.
This presentation is the eighth annual joint sponsorship by the VCRS and GCHRG and promises to be a major horticultural event of the winter season.
The Stagecoach Inn Rose Garden is an award winning garden of Old Garden Roses prior to 1909 located at the Stagecoach Inn Museum on 51 Ventu Park Rd. a mile south of the Ventura Freeway (Hwy 101) in Newbury Park. The museum complex also features a recreation of a Chumash village lifestyle as well as other facets of early California life.
There is no charge for this presentation.
