Roses promoted through Emporium; Promotional items benefit from GOTEPP funding

By MONETTE TAYLOR | South Central Texas Edition

This giant, flowering kale may look like a rose in bloom, but it is a featured plant at the Antique Rose Emporium to show how well other plants and antique roses can thrive in the same beds, according to Emporium developer Mike Shoup. -Staff photo by Taylor

January 9, 2003 -- There's an old saying that "a rose is a rose, is a rose."

Forget that.

Once you visit the Antique Rose Emporium in Independence, just outside of Brenham on Highway 50, you'll understand.

Developed about 20 years ago on the rolling hills of Washington County, Mike Shoup has transformed the property into a wonderland of various types of gardens, many with old roses interlaced in the landscapes.

"Our whole mission is to reintroduce the forgotten roses that are, essentially, time-tested through Darwin's theory of 'survival of the fittest,'" explained Shoup. "You're getting the best of the best. Anything that was weak died."

Recently, Shoup and his Antique Rose Emporium was awarded $24,240 in matching funds through the Texas Department of Agriculture's GO TEXAN Partner Program (GOTEEP), to develop color brochures and a direct mail list to promote the company's new roses - "Pioneer Roses" which are named after Texas pioneers.

"What we've done is we've taken some of our old garden roses and I've 'tinkered' with breeding new roses from these old roses," said Shoup.

These new Pioneer Roses will be introduced, nationally, and will be available by mail order. Shoup said that they wanted people all over the nation to see that Texas products are "big and worth looking at."

One rose already developed has won high, national acclaim, "Belinda's Dream," and has been named a Texas SuperStar among roses. Texas Superstar™ is one of Texas A&M University's horticultural research and Extension projects which combines the expertise of university and industry leaders in identifying superior landscape plants for Texas and introducing these plants into the marketplace.

The new brochure developed by Shoup should appear in February, just in time for spring planting.

Mike Shoup Emporium developer

Besides working of projects to promote the roses, Shoup has developed winding gardens at the Emporium with different names and plants, many native to this part of Texas. He has "cottage" gardens, "Victorian" gardens, "water" gardens, and what he calls the "kitchen" garden, which contains herbs used by cooks for centuries.

"We were able to create a mail order business that, essentially ... is a result of planting mature stands of these plants to show how these plants can be integrated into the garden," said Shoup.

While newer roses have been developed in the last 100 years, Shoup explained that isn't always the healthiest plant to have in your garden.

"The whole message is that these (older) roses belong in the garden and can be integrated with perennials and with annuals. These are not the kind of roses ... I think the point is ... that modern roses have been bred for the last 50 to 100 years for really bright colored flowers, long stems and the 'best of show' type of flower," he said.

In making these changes to the older roses and plants, Shoup claims they (plants) have lost much of their resistance to disease and aren't as "nature friendly" as the older plants. They are "fussy" plants, as he called them.

"We're going back to when the roses were tough and durable, as opposed to the modern roses ... where you can't plant anything else with them," he explained.

Shoup's gardens are completely organic, and he claims good roses do not need all of the spraying and chemicals that are used on newer breeds of the plants.

Shoup said they have about 250,000 roses in pots over a 25-acre nursery, and he is always developing and looking for more.

Articles showcasing the Emporium have appeared in the Smithsonian and National Geographic magazines, among others, and the area is host to about 80,000 visitors each year. Early spring and early fall usually find the roses at their peak, according to Shoup, but some flowers are blooming all year.

Another feature of the area is the ability to rent the gardens for weddings. If the weather turns bad, there is a small chapel available on the property.

(The Emporium, located about nine miles down Hwy. 50 North, off Hwy. 105 East, out of Brenham is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. everyday, except for major holidays. You may reach them at 800-441-0002.)