Consulting Rosarian Information

I was bitten by the rose bug in 1990 and lured into attending my first rose meeting by Mary Maud Sharpe when we overlapped at the Florida Department of Agriculture Laboratories. Since then, my career as an industrial analytical chemist (food, agriculture, and analytical instrumentation) has taken my family to Connecticut and Michigan in addition to several stints in Florida. Roses have been a constant in our lives, and some of you in the Central Florida area may remember our “rosebud” who would also show. She is now an industrial analytical chemist, and yes, I’ve heard about apples and trees!

My passion throughout the years has been to mentor folks and to ensure that everyone uses garden chemicals safely, and hopefully a few of you have learned how to minimize the misery of doing so in my training sessions! It is a thrill beyond all measure to be invited to serve in this new role.

Please remember that our CR Annual Reports are due by Jan 31, 2026. I know I’ve struggled with the fillable PDF forms on my home computer through the years, so my hope is that I’ve streamlined this by making a CR Reporting Form that you can complete online. You may see a QR code, but there will be a lot of typing this year, so you might want to use this CR Reporting Form Link instead and do it on a computer.

You will see that I’ve added a couple of questions that we’ve not had before because I want to celebrate all the wonderful work that you are doing in your communities and possibly inspire other clubs to take a page from your playbook!

For next year, my hope is to create a form that you can edit throughout the year, so the reporting for 2026 will be even more streamlined. I’ve just got to figure out the best way to do that. For now, please keep track of training that you attend at District or National meetings.

For local meetings, I’ve confirmed with the National CR Chair that your president or program director may send me an email to request CR credit until the ARS reset is complete. Please note for credit to be awarded, they will need to justify the technical content of the presentation by providing an outline of the presentation and bio of the speaker. Please do this 30 days prior to the meeting so that I can create and send them link to a form for you to track your CR credits electronically.

We are working out the details for a CR school to be held in Monticello in June. Stay tuned for more information! Please send the request and/or any CR-related emails to the new account that I’ve established for this work. It is dsdcrchair@gmail.com. This email will move with the position when I’m asked to transition out of the role and will be the only email address that I will monitor for CR business.

Rosy regards,
Karen Barnes
Deep South District, American Rose Society
Consulting Rosarian Program Chair