2026 Fall District Recap

The Fall District Meeting, held on September 18 and 19, was hosted by the Indianapolis Rose Society. The weekend was filled with inspiring speakers, engaging programs, passionate gardeners and of course, beautiful garden-grown roses.

There was also a buzz about how wonderful the lunch was! The entire lunch was provided by Indianapolis Rose Society VP, Eloisa Garza. Thank you Eloisa. I heard someone say… this was like Thanksgiving.

GIFT FOR THOSE WHO ATTENDED

Each attendee was given a Petite Peach Rose. This mini beauty was a sport of Petite Pink found in Teresa’ Byington’s garden. If you’d like to know more about this rose, READ ON HERE. Thank you to Dr. David Zlesak and his team of graduate students for providing the Petite Peach roses. They look fabulous.

PROGRAMS & SPEAKERS

On Friday evening, Raz Bancos gave us a virtual tour of the Antique Rose Garden he and the Miller Garden Club manage at the library in Gary, Indiana. What a beautiful work they are doing. You can read about the garden on the garden club website HERE.

Leslie Lewis of Living Systems Soil LLC joined us via Zoom to share a fascinating program on The New Paradigm for Understanding Soil and What it Means for Gardeners. Find out more about Living Systems Soil LLC HERE.

Mike Shoup, President of The Heritage Rose Foundation (link), shared Lessons from a Texas Rose Rustler with stories of how historical roses growing in unlikely places hooked him into a life-changing love of roses. Mike also brought copies of his beautiful book, Empress of the Garden… so several people went home with this special book.

Dr. Raymond Cloyd of Kansas State University made us believe we had hope in the war against Insects and Mite Pest of Roses. We came away armed with the latest information as well as Dr. Cloyd’s reminder that even though we sometimes deal with pests, we should “take time to stop and smell the roses.”

We ended our day beautifully with Linda Beutler, President of the International Clematis Society. (via Zoom). Linda shared ideas of clematis that pair beautifully with roses and we saw so many gorgeous pictures of the symbiotic relationship.

SILVER MEDAL WINNERS

Director Sharon Shipp presented Jim and Kaye Wessbecher of the Stephen Decatur Rose Society with this well-deserved honor. They have severed our district as Roses in Review Chairmen and as leaders in their rose society.

Our winners with the previous Silver Medal Winners…

FLORAL DISPLAY

The room was filled with beautiful roses lovingly grown in member’s gardens! While the roses weren’t formally judged, we did have an informal judging per table where people could “vote” for their favorites.