Vote for Best Green Businesses through 10-28-2012

By Rita Cook

In its fifth year, RoseDango is a one-day seminar held in Chambersville, Texas to celebrate Heirloom Roses at their peak fall bloom.  The event is presented by Chambersville Heritage Rose Garden and The Legacy of Legends Garden, conducted in cooperation with the international organization, Heritage Rose Foundation,  a group dedicated to the preservation, protection and promotion of endangered old garden roses.

At this year’s Rosedango event visitors will have the chance to hear four speakers, enjoy strolling a world-recognized rose garden, enjoy a free lunch and perhaps purchase a glass of wine while listening to music and browsing the many vendor booths.

According to Claude Graves, Consulting Rosarian for Chambersville Tree Farms, this year’s RoseDango speakers haul from New Jersey, Oregon, California and Louisiana and are noted for their expertise on heritage roses.
Stephen Scanniello is a noted author, lecturer and President of the Heritage Rose Foundation and he will be the Master of Ceremonies as well as conducting the day’s activities.

Gregg Lowey, owner of Vintage Gardens will discuss Heritage roses and the importance and value of preserving and protecting these treasures from the past with an emphasis on their usefulness in the gardens of today.  
Peggy Martin, namesake of the Peggy Martin Rose and hurricane Katrina survivor will describe the construction of her new garden in Gonzalez, LA and Anne Belovich, who is the owner of the largest collection of rambling roses in the United States, will present a program on her renowned collection and garden in Oregon.  The speakers will also be in the garden leading informative tours from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m.

“The Chambersville Heritage Rose Garden was first planted in 2006,” Graves explains.  “It was planned to be a garden to grow the specific classes or types of old roses that are well-suited to our environment.”  Graves says the garden has the largest collection of different varieties of Tea Roses in Texas too, and perhaps the largest in the United States,.   “We also feature an extensive collection of China Roses and Hybrid Musk Roses and we feature a collection of the roses “found” in Texas, these are the roses re-discovered by the Texas Rose Rustlers in the 1970’s an 80’s growing without any human care in cemeteries and abandon farmsteads,” Graves explains.

The garden is planted in a open meadow with each plant individually planted as a separate specimen plant as opposed to planting in “beds.”  
Overall, visitors will find 300-plus Heritage roses and an additional 200 modern roses in the Legacy of Legends Garden of modern roses.
Also according to Graves “The garden was developed to fit into the garden scheme proposed by the Heritage Rose Foundation,” and it is one of four heritage rose gardens in the United States recognized by the World Federation of Rose Societies as an important rose collection.

The Heritage Garden was initially planted for 300 roses, but Graves says “it will be expanded by approximately 75 roses next year with an addition of rare European Tea Roses and by as many as 300 more roses in the following three years when we add a world class collection of rambling roses.”
One of the most significant aspects in the garden too is the observations of cold weather and its effect on Tea roses, studies in this area of the garden have even been published in publications around the world.  

Rosedango will be held  on Sunday, October 21, 2012 at the 266-acre Chambersville Tree Farms, Inc. located just a short drive from Dallas and 12 miles from the City of McKinney.  The farm was established in 2004 to supply North Central Texas with quality trees, organically grown, at competitive prices.

Chambersville Tree Farms also sells roses at retail from an extensive inventory of well adapted hardy roses for the north Texas area.
From an organic standpoint in regard to the tree farm and rose garden, Graves concludes “Chambersville Tree Farms believes we should minimize our impact on the land and surrounding community, so we follow an organic growing and maintenance regimen.”  .

Gates and gardens open at 8:00 a.m.
For more information and directions visit www.RoseDango.com.

Photos: RoseDango The Chambersville Heritage Rose Garden

 


Sign up for the weekly Green Source DFW Newsletter to stay up to date on everything green in North Texas, the latest news and events.

Rita Cook is an award winning journalist who writes or has written for the Dallas Morning News, Focus Daily News, Waxahachie Daily Light, Dreamscapes Travel Magazine, Porthole, Core Media, Fort Worth Star Telegram and many other publications in Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago.  With five books published, her latest release is “A Brief History of Fort Worth” published by History Press.  You can contact her at rcook13@earthlink.net