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Gardening World. Here at Rose
Gardening World, you’ll find rose articles that will educate you about Roses – Rose History, Rose Culture, Rose Growing, Rose Profiles, Rose Gardening
Tips, Rose Gardens and even Rose
Verses all in one place. So visit Rose Gardening World often.
Take time and smell the roses. Roses have been around for millions of years which just prove that
roses are not difficult to grow. The Rose
is also our National Floral Emblem
and the state flower of several states.
The annual Rose
Parade and Rose Bowl football game is an all-American tradition on New Year’s
Day. Long before the radio was invented
much less the TV in 1890, members of the Pasadena’s
Valley Hunt Club wanted to celebrate the mild winter weather in California where roses
were still in bloom in January. They
were eager to tell the world about their paradise. They were from the East and Midwest who moved
to California and discovered the nice mild winter weather in Pasadena. Dr. Charles Frederick Holder declared at a
club meeting that “In New York, people are buried in snow. Here our flowers are blooming and our oranges
are about to bear. Let’s hold a festival
to tell the world about our paradise.”
The first floral
festival on New Year’s Day was attended by more than 2000 people and was
patterned after the Battle of the Flowers held in Nice, France. The festival included a modest procession of
flower-covered carriages with afternoon games of foot races, tug-of-war
contests, bicycle races, ostrich races, polo matches and other contest on the
town lot. There was even a race between
a camel and an elephant. The elephant
won. Eventually, the contest was
replaced by the best of college football.
The town lot was then renamed Tournament
Park in 1900. The first football game was played in 1902
between Stanford University and the University of Michigan
with Michigan
winning 49-0. Due to such defeat, the
Association dropped football in favor of chariot races.
Then in 1916,
football came back to stay. In 1920, a
new stadium was built which the local newspaper called the Rose Bowl. On January 1, 1923, the Tournament held the first Rose Bowl
game. Today, the festival starts with a
parade that includes matching bands, high-stepping equestrian units and
spectacular animated floats covered with million flowers from all over the
world. Volunteers called petal pushers
work hand in hand with professional designers to make this event a huge
success. This was followed by the Rose
Bowl where the championship collegiate football teams of the Pac-12 and the Big
Ten conference meet for the showdown of the Granddaddy of them all.
In
the early years, few teams arrived in flower decorated carriages which gave Dr.
Holder the idea to change the name of the festival to “Tournament of
Roses”. By 1895, the festival had gotten
so big that it was difficult for the Valley Hunt Club to handle so the
Tournament of Roses Association was formed.
Today the Tournament of Roses Association headquarters is housed at an
Italian Renaissance-style house, thanks to the generosity of the famous
chewing-gum manufacturer, William Wrigley Jr. whose favorite pastime was
watching the parade. The 18,500 square
foot mansion designed by architect G. Lawrence Stimson with a 4-1/2 acres rose
garden is located two blocks south of the starting point of the parade and was
bequeathed to the city of Pasadena upon Mr. Wrigley’s death in 1958 with the
stipulation that it be used as the Tournament’s permanent headquarters.
On Monday, January
2, 2012, the 123th Rose Parade with the theme “Just Imagine…” starts
at 8:00 a.m. (PT) followed by the 98th Rose Bowl Game at 3:10 pm between
the No. 10 ranked Wisconsin Badgers, champions of the Big Ten Conference, and
the No. 5 ranked Oregon Ducks, Pac-12 Conference champions. From a humble beginning, the Rose Parade is
now presented by Honda and expects to be watched by millions on television in
more than 120 countries plus thousands of spectators along the parade
routes. The parade will be broadcast on
ABC, Hallmark Channel, HGTV, KTLA, NBC, RFD-TV and Univision. The Rose Bowl Game is presented by VIZIO and can be watched on ESPN.
The events take
place on Monday, Jan. 2, 2012 to avoid interfering with worship services on
Sunday. J.R. Martinez, a retired soldier, actor and spokesman, will serve
as the Grand Marshal of the 2012 Tournament of Roses festivities. This year, one of the judges is Lois Fowkes,
an American Rose Society Judge from New York.
As a New Yorker and a friend, I am very proud of her.
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