Beech Tree News Network

By Cheryl Hughes

What is a Swirly Pop?  Swirly Pop is a rose in the category of Mini Roses that now has a Silver Certificate from the American Rose Society by its name, thanks to Ricky Lockhart. 

Ricky and his wife, Mary Ann, traveled to the American Rose Society’s 2024 National Rose Show, held in Warwick, Rhode Island, on the 10th of September, with 3 ice chests, containing 50 blooms. (There were 41 horticulture classes this year.)  The trip took 2 days.

Ricky has transporting roses down to a science.  Afterall, he has been a member of the American Rose Society for 25 years.  He uses large Styrofoam boxes and buckets of ice for his taller roses and regular-sized Styrofoam boxes containing wooden Coca Cola crates and bottles of ice for the others.  Most of the entries are individual blooms on stems that have been cut and placed in bottles of water, containing a life-extending solution, then placed in a refrigerator until time of transport.

Ricky planted his first rose bed about 35 years ago, while he and Mary Ann were living at a previous location.  The center of a circle drive provided a prime location.  Ricky made the wall around the bed from rocks he picked up on the farm.  There were 20 roses in that bed.  Fast forward to today, and you will find right at 300 roses in the beds near and adjoining his and Mary Ann’s house.  Swirly Pop was one of the new roses he put out this spring.

It was a friend who introduced Ricky to rose societies.  She purchased a membership in the Bowling Green Rose Society for him.  From there, he joined the district society, TENARKY, which includes Tennessee, part of Arkansas, and Kentucky.  Ricky is well known in district circles, taking home top awards for his roses every year.  Last year alone, he took home 14 First Place trophies.  The trophies are crystal bowls and vases, housed in a curio cabinet in his home.

Most of the roses Ricky cultivates come from K&M Roses in Mississippi.  Those particular roses come from Fortuniana root stock.  It is interesting to note that nearly all roses in this country come from only 3 different root stocks: Multi-Flora, Doctor Huey and Fortuniana.  “Once you get them established, the Fortuniana get taller and stronger than other root stock,” Ricky says.

What makes a good bed for roses?  “You have to dig out the old soil,” Ricky advises, “then fill it in with good soil, sand and compost, like cow manure.”  At this point, you will have a raised bed that’s about one and a half feet tall.  He continues the process by surrounding the bed with railroad ties and finishes it off with mulch.  His roses are a sight to behold this time of year.  Soon, however, it will be time to cut them back for the winter and apply more mulch.

A lot of work goes into maintaining show-worthy roses.  They have to be continually monitored for parasites and fungus infections.  Preventative spraying goes a long way.  “Roses love to eat,” Ricky says.  He feeds the large beds liquid fertilizer in driplines then hand feeds the beds next to the house.  During dry times, roses need lots of water, and there’s all the dead-heading (removing fading and dying blooms) that is a continuous job.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest in the younger generation to continue the cultivation of show roses, Ricky observes.  “I don’t think they want to put in the work,” he says.  Let’s hope he’s wrong.  It would be a shame to lose all that beauty.