814-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 22, 2002 Blooming Where Planted Start Roses With Cuttings LOU ANN GOOD Food And Family Features Editor DILLSBURG (York Co.) Dottie Beshore blooms where planted. And almost everything she touches blooms where she puts it. Eleven years ago, Dottie Be shore moved into a row apart ment with a barren outdoor yard stuck between two gravel lots. Today her little “Garden of Eden” is proof-positive that it doesn’t require a lot of money or ideal growing conditions to have a showcase garden. A self-described “Flower Per son,” Dottie has more than 60 va rieties of roses, 11 varieties of li lacs, IS varieties of irises, and a bountiful collection of herbs, day lilies, boxwood, orchids, begonias, African gardenias, and other per ennials thriving in her back yard. The most amazing fact about her colorful blooms is that she started the plants with cuttings not roots and not store-pur chased. Instead friends and acquain tances allow her to break off sev eral inches of a branch. She sim ply dips the end in root tone, sticks it in soil, covers it with a cut-off 2-liter plastic bottle, and watches for the first sign of new life ususually a tiny green leaf pushing through the soil about 3-8 weeks after planted. She be gins the cuttings in a shaded spot and transplants them later. Al though gardeners will insist that roses be planted in full sun, much of Dottie’s gardens are shaded from tall trees. “Sometimes people ask me, ‘How can your roses bloom so nicely when they’re tightly plant ed and near trees (which takes the water from roses)?’ I tell them this is the only spot I have. They (the roses) know they need to bloom (for me) and they do.” The transformation of the for merly barren lot stuck in the mid dle of town is alive with wildlife also, birds, squirrels, rabbits and chipmunks feed among her flow er beds. “It’s a little oasis between two places with no yard,” Dottie ex plains. “Each year I expand a little farther. In addition to planting in ground, Dottie likes container gardening, which enables her to move things around. She even has an 11-year-old lilac bush, much taller than her, growing in a pot. “I always dreamed of having a rose garden. 1 thought I’d have hybrid roses but it didn’t turn out that way.” Dottie speaks of her roses with awe and respect as she talks about the old-fashioned roses having survived droughts, thick ets, and weeds. You can often find a brave flowering rose bush blooming among the remains of an old abandoned house or crum bling stone wall. Everything else is in desrepair but the beauty of the rose endures. “I could go to the greenhouse and purchase a rose bush,” Dot tie admits, “but the thrill of start ing my own from an old-fash ioned one is much more exciting than buying one. It’s like starting a new life.” She experienced that first thrill when she was only seven and planted some flowers in her grandmother’s old cake pan. Neither her mother nor her grandmother had a houseplant, but Dottie started growing Afri can violets when she was 11. She started them with a leaf from a neighbor. “I remember the feeling just like it was yesterday,” Dottie said of seeing the first little leaf sprouting new growth. As a teen-ager, Dottie entered the many African violets in a local fair and received many blue ribbons for them. Dottie said that when planting rose cuttings, nip off all buds or blooms. Roses can’t bloom and set roots at the same time. Sometimes she sticks the cut tings in her garden and some times in a pot. “I prefer a pot, because you can pick it up and look at the bottom. If you see roots pushing out the bottom holes, you know you’ve got a healthy plant.” She sometimes waits one year before transplanting the potted roses to a permanent site in her flower bed. It doesn’t matter what time of the year the cuttings are planted according to Dottie. During the winter, roses go dormant. She sticks the pot beneath the soil. The plastic liter bottle helps to protect the cutting, and in the spring new growth bursts forth. “Don’t be alarmed if some of the leaves turn black and drop off. Soon little green shoots will appear.” Dottie started a few of her roses from seed—the rose hip. The old-fashioned roses re quire little care compared to the newer hybrids. Dottie feeds them a liquid fish emulsion several times during the summer and sprays them in early spring to control aphids and black spot. Dottie Beshore’s garden blooms with 60 varieties of roses, 11 of lilacs, 15 of irises, and numerous other perennials that she started with cuttings. Her little Garden of Eden is proof-positive that it doesn’t require a lot of money or ideal growing conditions to nurture a showcase garden. If bushes become too tall. Dot tie prunes them back. She said large rose bushes can be trans planted if they are trimmed back considerably to enable easier han dling. One of Dottie’s favorite roses is a cutting she took from the rose bush planted on her great grand mother’s grave. “Imagine,” Dottie said as she inhaled its sweet aroma, “This rose is at least 150 years old.” Years ago, it was a common tradition for people to plant rose bushes on the gravesite of a loved one. In recent years, many ceme Maryland Dairy Goat Association Hosts Workshop WEST FRIENDSHIP, Md. The Maryland Dairy Goat Asso ciation (MDGA) conducted its Spring Workshop and Confer ence at the Howard County Fair grounds in West Friendship, Md. April 29. The featured speakers in cluded Dr. George Haenlien, pro fessor of animal and dairy sci ences at the University of Delaware; Todd Biddle, dairy goat judge and animal instructor at the Milton Hershey School in Hershey; and Paul Kempe, feed nutrition specialist with Blue Seal Feeds. Forty people were in at tendance from Maryland, Penn sylvania, and Virginia. Dr. Haenlein gave a slide pre sentation and spoke of various dairy goat management practices throughout the world that he has encountered in his many travels. He encouraged dairy goat pro ducers to promote their product to a greater level, and look for opportunities to display dairy goat products, such as the Na tional Cheese Competition in Washington, D.C., in August. Two sessions were presented by Biddle. The first was on un derstanding how the USDA Sire Summary works and how to put it to use in your breeding pro gram. In the afternoon session, he demonstrated making glycer in-based soap with goat’s milk. Kempe explained nutrition re quirements for high producing does. He described a high pro ducing doe as one that milks 10 percent or greater of its body weight each day. Quality feed is teries mow or spray the grounds, and this has eliminated many old rose varieties. One time a relative asked Dottie to start a shoot from a child’s grave dated 1830. “Every rose has a story,” Dot tie said. She has a Harrison yel low semi-double bloom that was first identified in 1850 in New York state. That variety can be found across the U.S. and is be lieved to have been transported by pioneers traveling West to homestead new lands. Dottie keeps a rose journal in which she records where and when she found each rose variety. Jennifer Linton, right, was crowned the 2002 Maryland Dairy Goat Asso ciation’s youth representa tive at is spring conference and workshop. On the left is Laura Forsythe, the 2002 alternate youth representa tive. important, and Kempe explained some of the feeds that Blue Seal manufacturers that work very well with dairy goats. The MDGA also crowned its youth representative and alter nate youth representative for 2002. The winner of the youth representative title was Jennifer Linton, 16, of Port Deposit, Md. Jennifer has been raising dairy goats for the last three years and is very excited about promoting all of their many aspects and where she planted it and how it has thrived. Although she pe ruses a rose identification guide, she is unable to name several of the old varieties but she can tell you their habits. “This one will bloom again this season if I cut off the old blooms” or “this has apple-scented leaves after a rain.” In her journal, Dottie gives thanks for the many people who have given her cuttings and to her husband Frank who takes her in search of old varieties. products. She has competed in many public speaking and visual presentations. One of Jennifer’s most recent accomplishments was becoming captain of the Dairy Bowl Quiz team for the Cecil County 4-H last year. Although dairy cows are the main focus of this competition, dairy goats are becoming more prominent due to their increasing popularity. Her knowledge of dairy goats as the only dairy goat breeder on the team helped Cecil County earn the ranking of re serve champion for the state of Maryland. Jennifer went on to become the captain of the Maryland State Dairy Bowl Team, which com peted at the North American In ternational Livestock Exposition in Louisville, Ky. Again, Jennifer was the only dairy goat breeder competing, and her team placed fifth in the country. As a result of her dedication, many people de veloped a greater respect for the dairy goat, and a few even began to raise goats on the side. The alternate youth represen tative was Laura Forsythe, 13, from Williamsport, Md. She has also been raising dairy goats for three years and has a lot of en thusiasm about promoting them. Laura hosts various activities at her farm for local schools to come and see the goats, as well as taking her own goats to a compa ny picnic to answer questions and demonstrate how personable goats are. She is a member of the Washington County 4-H Dairy Goat Club.
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