The Ted and Mary Alice Mills Rose Garden
at
Veterans Park Soddy Daisy
 5-Fold Purpose

The Love Story

Theodore W. and Mary Alice Mills are natives of Soddy Daisy, Tennessee. They grew up and attended school there. They now live in nearby Chattanooga, but are proud of their heritage and speak fondly of their early days and the extended family and many friends who live in Soddy Daisy today.

Ted graduated from high school in 1940. Like most of his male classmates, he soon became a part of World War II. During his service in the Army, he survived the bloody Battle of the Bulge and other famous encounters. Soon after his discharge, he was named plant manager of the Soddy Hosiery Mill.

Mary Alice Clift also served during World War II as a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy.

In June 1950, she asked Ted to accompany her to a dance at the Fairyland Club on Lookout Mountain. The dance was cancelled, so they went to a show at the Chattanooga Little Theatre. The rest, as they say, is history. They were married at the First Presbyterian Church in Soddy on June 30, 1951.

The Mills moved into Chattanooga where Ted worked for American National Bank (now Suntrust), first as manager in the Brainerd branch and later downtown as Senior Vice-President for Business Development. Mary Alice worked for Provident Life Insurance Company, retiring from a position as Assistant Vice President for Personnel.

Ted "fell in love" a second time when he saw the rose "Double Delight" on the nightstand beside Lester Smith’s hospital bed. After Lester recuperated, he taught Ted the art of growing beautiful, healthy roses. Since that time, Ted and Mary Alice have been very active on the local and national level, promoting the rose, participating as exhibitors and judges at rose shows across the country. Ted has served on the Executive Committee of the American Rose Society. Ted and Mary Alice and their personal rose garden have been featured on numerous TV shows including Home and Garden and PBS productions.

Clayton Beaty, of Beaty Fertilizer Company in Cleveland, Tennessee, worked with Ted to produce an organic fertilizer combination, Mills Mix, for roses that included the best nutrients in one product instead of all the separate applications required in the "old" way of rose growing. The nationwide distribution of this product has made culture of prize-winning roses within the reach of every gardener. Mills Easy Feed was developed as a companion to Mills Mix.

Ted and Mary Alice have lovingly nurtured scores of rosarians across the country. Therefore, it is most appropriate that some of their "rose children" should honor them with an exhibition rose garden on the soil from which they came.

The workers who installed the original rose garden.

Rosarians to the Rescue 
(Excerpted from an article in the Spring 2009 Basal Breaks by Ted Mills)

It was a decade ago that the Society decided to build the garden.  Thanks to the vision and leadership of Dr. Casandra Cansler, the project was undertaken.  The garden became the focal point of the park, as thousands of area citizens enjoyed its beauty.  Almost single handedly, the good doctor kept the garden flourishing with spectacular blooms.  Countless hours of sweat and toil have gone into its care, not to speak of the financial funding that she often contributed.  But due to the heavy load of her expanding medical practice, the work became too much.  As a result, the garden’s appearance was not really enough to reflect the quality that the Society wanted.  It was at this point that remedial action began.  

Much credit for the garden’s rejuvenation must go to the leadership of Jeff and Cindy Garrett.  They led a movement to rescue it from oblivion.  Realizing that caring for a goodly number of hybrid teas is difficult, converting the garden to more carefree rose varieties such as  ‘Knock Out’ would be the answer.  After all, cutting of roses was forbidden by the city officials.  The garden was for viewing only.

Thanks to the generosity of the large rose-growing firms, Jackson and Perkins, Weeks Roses, and Bailey Nursery, the required roses were donated.  Over 100 shrub-type specimens grace the garden.  Color schemes were adopted to ensure its beauty.  Several varieties make up the total.   

The real virtue of this story lies in the willingness of some of our members to respond to the call for help.  On planting day, twenty rosarians made the trip to the garden.  Armed with shovels, rakes, and other equipment, this host of volunteers began the arduous task of restoring the garden to a place of beauty. Two weeks earlier, eleven Society members had met and worked very hard to properly prepare the rose beds for planting.  Additionally, the old roses had been removed by Soddy-Daisy public workers, making the work a bit easier for the rosarians.  The city also provided mulching material. 

We must also recognize the valuable donations made by Clayton Beaty.  It is absolutely amazing to view the many contributions this man makes to the Tri- State Rose Society of Chattanooga .  The planting mixture, soil conditioners, and mushroom compost used were donated and delivered from Cleveland by none other than Clayton.  He is one of Tri-State Rose Society’s main sources of help when something is needed.  After Holcomb Garden Center had generously agreed to pot the plants that had been shipped too early, Clayton kindly cared for them in his company green house. For these and countless other favors, we salute him with sincere thanks.

The workers who installed the re-planting in 2009

The rose beds - before blooming

Update by Jeff Garrett
Tri-State Rose Society of Chattanooga

In the fall of 2008, a committee of some of our rose society members was formed to look at the options for keeping the rose garden at Veterans Park in Soddy Daisy viable.  The committee met several times at the park and developed some options for the society membership to consider.  The society voted to reduce the number of roses at the park to about 112, focus on getting more disease free type varieties, and rework the existing beds.  The committee met further to develop a list of varieties to pursue for planting in the park.  The goal was to have an attractive rose  garden that would require as little care as possible.  We wanted to show the public that roses can be grown without daily care.  We also thought the garden would provide us a ’trial’ area for testing the disease resistance of different rose varieties.  In other words, let the “proof be in the pudding!”    

This past spring, volunteers gathered at the park on two different Saturdays to remove the existing roses and rework the beds, getting them ready for their new occupants.  The secret to having vigorous roses is to provide the best possible foundation for your roses, and that means having well prepared soil.  To accomplish this, mushroom compost and bark fines were added to the beds and worked it into the existing soil.  These amendments raised the beds to about 6 inches above the existing soil level.  The pH was also checked to make sure it was acceptable at around 6.2 to 6.5. 

The rose garden already had a very nice irrigation system utilizing Dramm nozzles operated by an automatic timer.  The system was cleaned and revised to accommodate the new garden design.   

Since this is a rather large park, it was decided that some mass planting was in order.  Thus, two beds were planted with Pink Knock Out, two beds were planted with Knock Out, and two beds were planted with Home Run.  That left two large rose beds that could accommodate 20 roses each.  It was decided to plant each bed with five roses of four different varieties. 

Keeping weeds from taking over the garden had become a problem for several of the past few years.  Thus, as the roses were planted, they were heavily mulched with pine straw to about 6 inches thick.  The two outer beds that are raised by brick borders were mulched with pine bark nuggets that were left over from a previous growing season to a thickness of 4-6 inches.  While the thickness may seem excessive to some, we wanted to do our best to eliminate as many weeds as possible.

After the roses were planted, they were kept well watered until the first bloom cycle.  After the initial bloom cycle, the bushes were deadheaded and fertilized with BloomKote from Beaty Fertilizer.

During the growing season, any weeds and Bermuda grass that did spout were promptly sprayed with RoundUp, being very careful to keep the material from hitting any part of the roses.  We knew if we took care of any weeds early, they would be less likely to become a serious problem.  We can happily report that our mulch kept the weeds to a minimum. 

As mentioned earlier, five roses of four different varieties were planted in two of the beds.  None of the roses were sprayed with fungicides during the growing season.  Let’s review  how they performed. 

Hansa, a deep fuchsia hybrid rugosa, proved to be a vigorous grower, but did not bloom as much as we would have liked.  The blooms are fairly small, but fragrant.  No signs of disease were ever present.

Topaz Jewel is a medium yellow hybrid rugosa.  The blooms were a little small and seemed to really wilt in the summer heat.  The foliage of this variety is a light green.  This variety did not impress us with its blooms, but the plant was disease free for the season. 

Carefree Spirit  is a red and white bicolor shrub from Meilland.  This AARS winner proved to be a very nice selection for mass color and bloom production with lots of clusters of cherry red blooms with a white reverse.  The plants grew well and showed no signs of disease.

Lady Elsie May is a very pretty coral-pink shrub from the Noack firm in Germany.  This AARS winning variety also proved to be a good selection, as it grew and bloomed well.  The blooms have 8-14 petals and come in bunches.  The foliage is a very attractive glossy green.  No disease was evident with this variety.

Belinda’s Dream is classified as a medium pink shrub, however the plant performs more like a floribunda.  The blooms have lots of petals and are very attractive.  The plant showed only minor blackspot in the late fall when we experienced all that excessive rain.

All the Rage is a new shrub that was hybridized by Pim Ling and available from Bailey Nurseries.  Classified as an apricot blend, our blooms are more of a deep pink with 7-9 petals and are a little larger than those of Knock Out.  While the plants took a little time to get established, they showed no signs of disease.

Sweet Fragrance is an attractive apricot blend grandiflora that as the name implies has a wonderful fragrance.  This may be our favorite variety in the garden.  The plants grew well and the blooms have lots of petals.  This variety also showed no signs of disease.

Cape Diamond is classified as a medium pink Hybrid Kordesii hybridized by Christian Bedard of Weeks Roses.  This variety has lots of pretty blooms with lots of petals and a nice spicy fragrance.  Our only real issue with this variety is its growth habit, which is a lot like a climber.  The arching branches had trouble holding the bloom clusters off the ground.  This may improve with age.  No disease issues with this variety either.

It goes without saying that the Knock Outs, Pink Knock Outs, and Home Runs grew well and bloomed abundantly.  None of these varieties showed any signs of disease.

Our society will be hosting a “Pruning Demonstration” at a yet to be determined date in early to mid March at the garden.  We will be using this opportunity to share with the public how we will be pruning the roses.  Hopefully many of you will be there to help get the garden off to a good start in 2010. 

After all the roses are pruned, we will spray the plants with liquid lime-sulfur to get them off to a good disease free start.  Other than that, we do not plan to spray with any additional fungicides during the growing season.  We will also apply another round of BloomKote and replenish the mulch this spring.   

Pictures of the 2010 pruning at the park

Directions to Veterans Park from downtown Chattanooga: 
Take Hwy 27 North to Thrasher Pike exit, about 13 miles North of downtown Chattanooga, ~1.5 miles north of Hwy 153/Hwy 27 junction. Left on Thrasher Pike ~3/4 mile to Dayton Pike. Right on Dayton Pike ~1.5 mi. Past Kay's Kastle, then Williamson Funeral Home on the Right. The Park is on the left a few hundred yards past the Funeral Home. Can be easily recognized by flag pole and Vietnam helicopter in addition to the roses.