A Nextdoor post from Menlo Park resident Stuart Dalton caught our attention: “Peninsula Rose Society posted a non-judged photo exhibit on our website. View over 100 member photos taken in gardens, vases, and arrangements. We could not have our normal in-person show so we have a virtual exhibit. While you browse the site, feel free to look at past shows, resources like favorite roses or care instructions. Enjoy!”
That led us to contact Patti Spezzaferro, the organization’s current president, who emailed: “We are a dedicated group of people who have bonded together over our love of roses. The Peninsula Rose Society was created in 1955 to give rose-lovers in the San Francisco Peninsula area an opportunity to meet and share their passion for roses. We presently have 50 members from San Francisco to Los Altos seven of whom are from Menlo Park.
“The Peninsula Rose Society is dedicated to volunteer activities in the local community, including public and private rose consultations, rose pruning demonstrations, and pruning roses at local veterans’ hospitals, cemeteries, and other public and private locations.
“We are a strong group and have not let the pandemic get us down. We went virtual with this year’s Annual Rose Exhibit accessible to everyone, , with our monthly Zoom membership meetings, and each member receives a monthly newsletter. We have added a Zoom weekly Social Chat Hour to help our members and the public with their rose questions and concerns. In social media, we have a very active Facebook page thanks to Stu Dalton and an Instagram account is now in the works.”
There is a link on PRS’s website where people can ask for advise on rose cultivation and issues as well as learn about membership.
Stu says he got interested in roses when he was 10 years ago.”My dad taught me how to prune roses for a neighbor who was unable to prune anymore,” he says. “As a teen I worked summers for a landscape architect, on our family farm, for a fertilizer company, so gardening and agriculture paid for most of my college fees at Cal.
“I’ve had roses in my own garden and taught pruning in the area for many decades, including many years at the now defunct Roger Reynolds Nursery. I also grow vegetables and orchids in the Linfield Oaks area of Menlo Park.”
Photos courtesy of Peninsula Rose Society: Top photo “Remember Me” grown and photographed by Stuart Dalton as is the third photo, “Bathsheba.” Second photo is “Lady of Shalott” grown and photographed by Patti Spezzaferro
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