Snowheather -- This example, mostly taken from the Desert Rose Society's show schedule, is good wording for a Found Roses Class:

"One bloom or spray of any "found" rose.
"Found" roses are those that have typically been found in old cemeteries or around old homes.
They have not received an AEN from the ARS, and are only known by a study name.
They may be in commerce, or not.
Exhibitor is to enter the specimen under its study name, and to indicate on the entry tag where and when the rose was found, or where it was purchased.
Best in Class award: "Found Rose" Trophy."
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It is VERY important to request some sort of provenance.
Either a rough idea of where the rose was found, or an explanation of where it was purchased.
(Many "Found" roses are, or have been, in commerce.)

An example of a Study Name would be "Grandmother's Hat," or "Flores Street House-Eater."

If you have other questions, drop me an email, and we can "talk." :-)
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I don't know that I could possibly give you a "top ten" of Found Roses. Many aren't even in commerce, but are shared from hand to hand, so there may be wonderful roses in other parts of the country with which I'm unfamiliar.
I know what Found Roses get a lot of interest in California, but that's not the same. :-)

Jeri

What Jeri said. In our local club found roses are added to the classes which best represent the class the rose is from based on the Combined Rose List.

Lance

Just the information I needed - thanks guys! We will use that information in our class description, if it is OK.

We are trying to make our rose shows more user-friendly. This Spring we added a division for "Naturally Grown Roses" (with classes for EarthKind, Shrub, Heritage and Modern Roses, as well as Bouquets.) We also added my personal favorite - Decorative Form Roses. We think this recent show was our best. We didn't get a lot of entries in the Naturally Grown class yet, but we expect to as more people learn about it.

Again, thanks for the good information!

Snowheather, you make me wish I could come to your show. :-) It sounds FASCINATING.

One other element that I see appearing in a few show schedules of late is PHOTOGRAPHS. Here's the wording for that, from Pacific's site:

SECTION M Class 67. Rose Photograph.
A rose or rose-related photograph. Any 5-inch x 7-inch or 8-inch x 10-inch color or black and white print.
The print is to be matted but not framed.
The outside dimensions of the mat must be 11-inches x 14-inches.
Stands will be provided. The class will be judged by one team of horticultural judges and one team of arrangement judges.
Entries will be judged 50% on exhibition form or rose bloom(s) and 50% in general overall beauty.
"Exhibition form for the purposes of this class shall include fully open form with stamens clearly visible.
At the discretion of the judges, multiple 1st, 2nd, 3rd and Honorable Mention awards may be given.
Award: Trophy and PRS Certificate.
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Desert Rose Society will also offer this class at the November ARS National Conference, this coming Fall in Palm Springs. So this is good "practice" for anyone who might want to enter that.

Jeri

Wish you could come to our shows, too! We started a Photography Class last year and got lots of entries, but we say the photographs are judged 100% on photographic excellence - and is for amateur's only. We had to get photographers to judge the class, or a judge who knows photography. Now we just have three classes - Rose Garden View, A Beautiful Rose, and The Abstract Rose. Your truly has been a big winner, as I do love photography. Unfortunately, the ARS Photo contest is infinitely more competitive!

It is fun to get out of the same old format for the shows and our main goal is to get more people to enter and to have fun! I also show daylilies and iris and wish they would be creative, too.

I think I might enjoy your photo class more than the more competitive one.
But then, I enjoy the un-judged Celebration of Old Roses much more than a judged rose show --
so you can see what a troublemaker EYE am ;-)

To get more people in, have you ever considered offering a non-judged portion of the show?
I was surprised to hear from my friend Jim Delahanty that most ARS Rose Shows used to be un-judged,
so it really wouldn't be all that iconoclastic.
And it sure might increase the number of roses in the room.

Jeri

It probably would avoid some problems if you would also make it clear in your definition of your "found" rose class that the rose someone found in the Gramdmother's back yard without a name tag does not qualify for this class. As Jeri said, requiring some sort of provenance is important.

The tricky part of that is, you can't just say something like:
"Your Grandma's Hybrid Tea whose name you don't know isn't what we're looking for here."
'Cause, sure's you do that, someone will come up with a spectacular "family" rose of unknown identity.
-G-

Once, at a local County Fair near us, a fella entered in the "Old Garden Rose" class a white HT. (Might-ha been JFK.)
He said (when asked, later) that he was old, and his garden was old, and so was the rose, and so there.

He also won the Old Garden Rose trophy.
It was a scandal.
Sic transit gloria mundi. :-)

But in practice, this has worked quite well at several shows in Southern California.

Jeri

Again, thanks for all the information! I only have one "Found" rose (Secret Garden Musk Rambler), so know very little about them. But, with your help, I have a good description for the show. I think I will try to get someone to come give us a talk about them first- I'm Program Co-Chair. Wish we could afford to fly one of you guys out!

We had an unjudged "Celebration of Roses" also at our newly re-designed Spring show and I have to say it was brilliant. The city of Farmer's Branch has extensive rose gardens, Earth Kind and otherwise, and their director made a whole long table of gorgeous bouquets. Since it was at our Arboretum on a pleasant Sunday, there were lots of visitors to the show. This was the kind of celebration of roses we want the general public to see.

Oh, and Jim Delahanty helped a lot as I prepared my program on Seeking Elusive Roses. It was well received and now the Historical Rose Society wants to hear it. There is so much creativity among us rose lovers!

That'd be "Secret Garden Musk CLIMBER." --G--
But you got the idea across. :-)

Now I wish I could have seen your Celebration and also your presentation.

Jeri

That's right - maybe I just think of it as a rambler, since it is climbing a tree in my yard!

One more question, though. What if a "found" rose has been identified? Like, I still see people calling a rose "Katy Road Pink", and hasn't than been identified as Carefree Beauty? Is there a place to see a list of identified found roses?

Run them through HelpMeFind. (See below)

You'll see that if you search Katy Road Pink
the entry will tell you that its Exhibition Name is Carefree Beauty.

Jeri

Here is a link that might be useful: Katy Road Pink at HMF