Garden club members share love of plants and flowers

Cheryl Hume gathers roses the way some kids collect Pokemon. She grows at least 1,000 plants on her half acre near Smoke Ranch Road and Decatur Boulevard.

“I never met a rose I didn’t like,” she said.

“You know that program ‘Hoarders?’ ” fellow rose grower Merle Aufill said. “Cheryl hoards roses. If there’s a new rose she sees at a rose show … ”

“If you beat me with a rose, I’ll get it,” Hume said. “I’ll be right back at you next year.”

This year was a hot one for roses at the Las Vegas Flower Arrangers Guild’s annual spring show, March 28 and 29, with Aufill and Hume dominating the display table at the Nevada Garden Club Center, 800 Twin Lakes Drive, on the northwest edge of Lorenzi Park.

Aufill said a warm winter and early bloom convinced her to go all out at the Flower Arrangers Guild show instead of waiting for the Las Vegas Valley Rose Society’s annual spring rose show, set from 12:30 to 4 p.m. April 18 at the West Charleston Library, 6301 W. Charleston Blvd.

“By then, a lot of mine are going to be gone,” Aufill said.

“Oh yeah, big time,” Hume said.

There are a lot of complex steps involved in growing competition-quality roses, from pulling off suckers to mastering the perfect mix of fertilizer. But the tip Hume insists is most important is simple.

“Water them — water, water, water,” she said.

“And mulch for the hot summer,” Aufill added.

“Pay attention to them,” Hume said. “You just need to go out and look at them pretty often because it’s amazing how fast they’ll go limp, like if an emitter closes or falls out or whatever. A rose bush will be gone in a few days.”

Looking for expert advice from other green thumbs?

The Nevada Garden Club Center is a good place to start. Outside the center, statues representing each season preside over a rose garden established by the Mesquite Club, a service and social organization for women.

Inside, depending on the day, time and season, visitors may find meetings of the Las Vegas Chrysanthemum Society, the Cactus and Succulent Society of Southern Nevada, the Carnation Garden Club, the Growers Study Guild, the Ikenobo Ikebana floral art group, the Las Vegas Bonsai Society, the Las Vegas Iris Society and more.

Some gardeners dip into multiple clubs, including the Flower Arrangers Guild and the Rose Garden Club.

The Las Vegas Flower Arrangers Guild’s annual spring show drew members of multiple clubs into the center to display their growing and arranging talents.

Judi Stebbins, president of the Las Vegas Flower Arrangers Guild, explained that the show was split into two divisions: a horticulture division packed with blooms, shrubs, vegetables and greenery grown by entrants; and a design division, where purchased plants, fresh or dry, can be thrown into the mix.

“Never artificial — eww, bad,” Stebbins said.

Other taboos include plants covered in a coat of oil.

“You can’t put shiny oil on to make the leaves glow,” Stebbins said. “There’s no oiling, no shining, but you are supposed to clean them up, and the pot should be neat.”

This year’s show followed a cooking theme, with arrangements inspired by phrases such as “some like it hot” and “forbidden fruit.” Participants dropped off entries the night before or starting at 7 a.m. the first day of competition. Many got up early or worked late to preserve perfect freshness.

Larri Tarver put more than water work into her mini-cymbidium orchid and was thrilled when her little California transplant took one of the top awards.

“Oh, my baby,” she said stroking a stem. “Yes, I am excited because they said, ‘It’s not going to grow here, it’s not going to grow here.’ You should have seen, I had plywood that went over the fence to give it shade. I had plastic when it got too cold to keep it warm. I have four of them, but this is the only mini, the only small one.” And the others? “They didn’t blossom. This is the only one that did. It was just perfect.”

Not all the entries featured blossoms. Amy Boger, owner of We Do Plants Etc., won in the container plant division with a money tree she rescued as a seedling from a nursery’s reject pile.

“I’ve babied it,” she said.

Trees and shrubs are represented by a single sprig and split into evergreen and deciduous categories. The petite section, Stebbins’ forte, featured tiny floral creations that still followed all the rules of the full-size arrangements.

Next up, in addition to the April 18 rose show, the Iris Society is set to host its annual show from 12:30 to 4 p.m. April 18 at the Nevada Garden Club Center. Many garden club members plan to attend the Pacific Region Garden Club’s 2015 convention April 20-22 in Eugene, Ore. The region is made up of clubs in Washington, Arizona, California, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, Alaska and Hawaii. Next year, Nevada is set to host the event, with the convention planned at Green Valley Ranch Resort.

Big conventions and seasonal shows are only part of the fun. The Flower Arrangers Guild meets at 9:30 a.m. the second Thursday of the month from September through May at the Nevada Garden Club Center. Meetings feature a demonstration and an assignment for members to complete for the next meeting.

“We learn from each other,” Stebbins said. “The ones who actually work as florists have a lot of helpful hints about how to put things together and hold them so that they don’t fall over. And people that are Master Gardeners in our group help us to know which flowers work best. You can learn from everybody.”

Group members share that knowledge whenever they can.

“We went to a school and let the kids do a design the day before Valentine’s Day,” Stebbins said. “It was a fifth-grade art class, and one little boy came in and said, ‘I’m not doing that.’ By the end of the class, he ran up to the front to the lady who was leading the class, and he was practically hugging her, he was so excited about it. It was like an eye-opener… And they made beautiful things, and it was Valentine’s Day coming up, so they brought them home to their mothers. It was so exciting.”

For more information, visit nevadagardenclubs.com. For more information on the upcoming rose show, call Aufill at 702-878-5259.

To reach View contributing reporter Ginger Meurer, email gmeurer@viewnews.com. Find her on Twitter: @gingermmm.