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Top Ten Reasons To Join the ARS

By Robert B. Martin, Jr.

The American Rose Society (ARS) is the largest specialized plant society in the U.S. Founded in 1892, this national nonprofit educational organization promotes the culture and appreciation of the rose - America's national flower. If you love roses, you should belong to the ARS. Why? Here are ten good reasons - in reverse order - for you to consider:

1. Support Your Local Rose Society

There are more than 350 local rose societies affiliated with the ARS. You don't have to be an ARS member to belong to one, and it is good to support your local rose society. The ARS also supports your local society. For example, it provides information to local societies on how the local societies can better serve their members. It directs inquiries from prospective members to local societies. It provides a blanket insurance program for local societies that enables them to obtain insurance for their activities at considerably less expense than if they tried to obtain insurance separately. Also, the ARS is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as an educational organization that is exempt from Federal income taxation. Local rose societies affiliated with the ARS are also eligible for tax exemption as an educational organization under a "group exemption" procedure under the blanket of the ARS. Contributions to local rose societies that have been recognized as eligible are tax deductible. This support of the local rose societies by the ARS is valuable, and you support your local rose society by joining the ARS.

2. Visit Promised Rose Gardens

ARS headquarters and the Gardens of the American Rose Center are located in Shreveport, Louisiana. With over 42 acres and 20, 000 roses, the American Rose Center is the nation's largest park dedicated to roses. The Gardens are open seven days a week March 30th through October 31st, and in the evenings between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve for a wonderful Holiday treat. Your membership in the ARS gives you free admission should your travels ever take you to Shreveport. But if they don't, your automatic membership in the American Horticultural Society's Reciprocal Garden Admission Program allows you free admission to more than 100 select gardens and horticultural events throughout the United States.

3. Support Rose Science

The ARS is an educational organizational that supports the horticultural science of roses. It undertakes cooperative research programs on rose problems at universities and experimental stations It also tests and evaluates rose-related products. As the International Registration Authority for Roses, the ARS records the registration of the roses of the world and maintains the most comprehensive database of roses of historical and botanical importance in the world. The ARS publishes the information periodically in Modern Roses, the latest edition of which, Modern Roses XI, contains information on over 24,000 rose varieties. Your membership supports these important activities.

4. Engage Your Special Interests

The ARS has a variety of publications about roses, including special interest quarterly bulletins. They include Rose Exhibitors' Forum, devoted to all aspects of rose exhibiting and rose culture; Rose Arranger's Bulletin, featuring tips on arranging, design, materials, techniques and arrangement show results; Mini/Mini-Flora Rose Bulletin, offering a wealth of information specifically designed for miniature and mini-flora roses; and The OGR & Shrub Gazette, with articles for lovers of old and landscape roses. There is a small added cost for each, but your membership is the starting place.

5. Become a Consulting Rosarian

The ARS has a Consulting Rosarian Program consisting of more than 2,200 expert rose gardeners around the country who provide free expert advice to gardeners who want to learn how to grow better roses. You don't have to be a member of ARS to use the services of your local Consulting Rosarian. But you do have to be a member if you want to be a CR; in fact you have to have been a member for at least the last three years. The best way to learn about roses is to prepare to teach, so if you want to learn a lot about roses, you want to be a part of this program. The CRs are the evangelists of roses. Hallelujah! If you want to carry the gospel of roses you have to become a CR. Amen.

6. Show Your Roses - Judge Others

A central activity of nearly every local rose society is the annual sponsorship of a rose show. The rose show is an opportunity for rosarians to show non-rose growers the vast potential and beauty of roses. You don't have to be a member of the ARS to show your roses in your local show, in fact you don't have to be a member to show your roses in a national show. But let's suppose you really want to get serious about growing and showing the best roses. Then maybe you ought to become a rose judge and, to do that, you have to have been an ARS member for at least three years. And suppose you wanted to compete for District and National rose show trophies - the top awards. Well, you also have to be a member to do that.

7. Search for the Perfect "Ten"

The ARS has for 78 consecutive years conducted an annual survey of newer rose varieties, to determine how they actually grow in the gardens of America. Now called Roses in Review, the roses are rated on a ten-point scale, and older varieties are periodically reassessed. You don't have to be a member to participate in this survey, but it's valuable and your membership supports it. Then each year the ARS publishes and sends to every member, The Handbook for Selecting Roses, in which the findings from these surveys are published, along with information on thousands of commercially available roses. The Handbook, which fits right in your pocket, will help you select roses for your gardens and can save you some big bucks in making the best choices. It might even help you find the perfect "ten" for your garden.

8. Read All About It

Your membership in the ARS will bring you 11 monthly issues of the American Rose, a 46 page full color monthly magazine with columns, feature articles, advertisements and information on all aspects of rose growing. Then, in December of each year, you will receive the American Rose Annual, a perfect bound 132 soft cover book containing full-length feature articles with scientific information on roses and rose culture, plus articles of general interest to rose lovers. The American Rose Annual has been published annually since 1916 and back issues are collector items, challenging some members to collect them all.

9. Connect With Nice People

Rose people are the nicest people I know. I have found the nicest ones of all in the ARS. They gather at two National Conventions and a Miniature Rose National Conference each year to share their roses, hear lectures, take garden tours and hang out together. They've even been known to dress as roses. Each District also has its own convention and conferences where local rosarians gather. The ARS is a volunteer organization and through it you get the opportunity to work together with people who have but one primary purpose - to enhance knowledge of the rose. The personal connections people build through their involvement in non-profit organizations provide the backbone of relationship communities, and the ARS is just that - a relationship community. Through service on committees, in offices and the undertaking of commitments to the ARS, I have developed friendships throughout the United States. Everywhere I go, I know there are rosarians who welcome the opportunity to share their gardens, their friendship and to simply talk roses. With the ARS I have friends, many of whom I haven't met yet. You can be part of this community of friends.

10. The Roses Deserve It

So that's a lot of benefits to consider, but now we come to the most important. The benefits cited above are the tangible things we get from joining the ARS, the quid pro quo. But the most important thing is not tangible; it cannot be evaluated as a business transaction, and whether you get your money's worth. The higher question is not what we get but what we give. The rose is the most beautiful flower in God's creation, a gift that has been generously given to us. It is not in the "getting" that we receive but in the giving. By giving to roses, we receive from them. My friend Lynn Snetsinger has said that we are the "Guardians of the Rose." That is the role God gave to those of us who love roses and the roses deserve it. The rose is so generous in our gardens. It always gives back in multiples for whatever we put into it. So how do you give back? Well, you join the community of those of like mind and you give to it. To modify the words of President John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what the rose can do you for you, but ask instead what you can do for roses." As Sherlock Holmes said to Dr. Watson: "Our highest assurance of the existence of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first place. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which brings extras, and so I say again, that we have much to hope for in the flowers." The ARS is our hope for the rose and my hope is that you will join us.

Convinced? Click here to download the printable ARS membership form or go to the ARS website. There are roses waiting for you.