Rose show is two days away - roses and arrangements are coming together

(This is a continuation of my description in my garden blog - but for some technical reason, that blog is not for a few days taking picture uploads.)

The roses are looking okay, though (it always works this way!) I would have had many more to show if the competition were held last weekend. We had very warm weather (it hit 90°F !) but while it was a little cooler, I risked the 40% chance of thundershowers and sprayed my roses for that last extra boost of disease prevention and foliar fertilization (I used all-season oil, copper, baking soda, and kelp). It ended up raining some hours later in the early evening - which was okay, as we do need the water.

I picked and refrigerated a Double Delight (the first of the season) that could work in my large arrangement if I use three different varieties; two Chrysler Imperials (they're so open that they probably won't last - but I can try, and they have two big buds, so this could work if I use three different cycles of bloom), and two Veteran's Honor - there's one more that should be ready by Saturday, but the leaves have a touch of blackspot. I still hope that I can use the blooms of Big Purple in my refrigerator.

My wife and I worked on finalizing the two arrangements tonight, and we're basically there. The miniature looks very good and is so easy to do! We simply cinched the plastic grid closed with a black twist tie. I had earlier in the day painted two reservoirs black, and we put wet oasis foam in both. A spray of Gourmet Popcorn fit into the slightly leaning "skyscraper" and the reservoir didn't have to be hot glued in place - it fits in nicely and is self-supporting! And the single (here a single and a bud) rose at the base of course is easy. So this arrangement is quite easy to put together and cost only 39¢ (or was it 59¢) for a sheet of plastic, not counting the fabric I already had - and will take literally a few moments to place at the show and should take no more than 15 minutes including choosing the flowers and getting them in place. I think it is elegant, simple, and has the potential to garner a 1st or 2nd place - provided I have good specimens of Gourmet Popcorn (I think I will).

As to the large arrangement, we tried gluing three vials with water and blooms (I used a few English David Austin roses that do shatter easily, as well as an old Melody Parfumee bloom) - and the sculpture held up fine! I didn't take a picture then but here you can see Sangeeta holding one of the vials in place and placing the others so that they stay by themselves. I had painted (but didn't use here in our trial) vials black, and want to hot glue them behind the sculpture so they're not much visible.

One issue remains with the arrangement - the cinching belt loose end shows up at the base. We're going to try putting electrical tape around the base tomorrow. Also, we tried extending the sculpture a bit, but it settles back down. We need to fill the niche and don't want to get points taken away for not doing that. I think this arrangement could do well, but will depend on the roses, of course, and the "performance" of the sculpture, which I think will be fine.