December is a popular time to review the past year, but also a time to look forward, both represented by the Roman god Janus, for whom the first month of the year is named. He is the “god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces since he looks to the future and to the past.” We can reflect on a year of community involvement with our successful rose show at the Village retirement facility where residents visited our show and we had our first photography competition including youth entries. This laid the groundwork for helping The Village garden group install rose gardens in 2020.
People have mentioned to me several times how much they have enjoyed Art Wade’s presentations to community groups. Additionally, Dan Mills presented a program at the Melrose Public Library. And we enjoyed meetings, programs, and social events.
We can look forward to 2020. Lee Kline is working with students at Westwood Middle School where gardening projects are progressing in partnership with the Gainesville Garden Club Master Gardeners. The Village is scheduling several rose programs, facilitated by GRS, for their gardening club and will host the rose show portion of the November 2020 Deep South District fall meeting. We will begin planning the DSD fall meeting early in 2020. Be thinking about where you would like to volunteer as a chair or worker. We invite our members to participate in these activities, please!
Missy Burton and I visited the Marion County Rose Society Festival at Silver Springs State Park. The roses were beautifully presented including specimen roses and arrangements in interesting containers suitable for gifts or use at home.
Yours in Roses,
Jean Giesel, President
