Hart Hall in Newhall was transformed from a typical meeting place into a luscious garden full of colorful flora at the Santa Clarita Valley Rose Society’s 24th annual Wild West Rose Show on Saturday.
Local residents were encouraged to bring their roses to the hall at William S. Hart Park and enter them, free of charge, into the showcase.
A team of veteran rose connoisseurs judged the competition, placing the roses they deemed to be the best onto a large table in the center of the room.
Gardners old and young, novice and expert, all came out to exhibit their roses and to learn a little bit more about the craft.
“Our exhibit is an educational one,” said SCV Rose Society Vice President and Rose Show Director Kitty Belendez.
Belendez and other members of the society view the annual Rose Show as an opportunity to help educate community members on the intricacies of rose cultivation.
“A lot of rose societies put on rose shows for educational purposes to educate the public on the different roses that are grown,” she said.
Roses, Belendez explained, vary in color and brilliance based on the humidity and temperature of the region in which they were grown. Desert rose petals tend to be muted in color, and coastal roses are bright but very susceptible to disease; Santa Clarita roses, she said, are a happy medium.
The hundreds of roses in William S. Hart Park’s Hart Hall were a testament to this – the winning rose, dubbed the “Ring of Fire,” was a vivid bouquet of six orange colored roses.
The Santa Clarita Valley Rose Society meets monthly at the SCV Senior Center.
