Dean Oswald, Gregg Martin and Claude Graves recently spoke at Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas. They discussed heirloom and hybrid roses as well as best practices for pest control and nutrition.

Saturday May 3, 2014. Gates open at 8:00 am and close at 5:00pm. We will have great speakers, a wide variety of vendors, lunch and more! Check www.rosedango.com and www.chambersvilletreefarms.com for more information and updates!

September 5, 2013 we will be hosting a Q&A Forum on our Chambersville TF Staff page on Facebook from 6-7pm. Barbara Villarreal will be taking and answering your questions you have about trees, shrubs and roses. We look forward to chatting with you! Also, don’ t forget to like our interest page!

https://www.facebook.com/#!/chambersvilletf001?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chambersville-Tree-Farms/115157668596795?ref=br_tf

April 28, 2013

RoseDango is coming early this year! Sunday April 28, 2013! We are getting all of our speakers together and looking forward to a great bloom and great speakers! Please visit www.rosedango.com for details and updates for RoseDango 2013!

Chambersville Tree Farm is sponsoring a Japanese Maple Conference at the Dallas Arboretum to expand attendees knowledge on this magnificent tree.  Guest speakers include: Dr. David Creech, Harold Spiegel, and Talon Buchholz.  Dr. David Creech is a Professor of Horticulture  at Stephen F Austin University.  Harold Spiegel is the Founder and Owner of Preservation Tree Service and a Japanese Maple enthusiast.  Talon Buchholz is Owner and President of Buchholz & Buchholz Nursery in Gaston, Oregon which specialize in Japanese Maples and Conifers.  We look forward to seeing everyone there, please stay tuned for more details.

RoseDango is quickly approching, so save the date! October 21, 2012. Gates open at 8:00 am and close at 5:00pm. We will have great speakers, a wide variety of vendors, lunch and more! Check www.rosedango.com and www.chambersvilletreefarms.com for more information and updates!

Come visit Chambersville Tree Farm at Van Alstyne’s Arbor Day Festival on April 28, 2012! It will be a half day event celebrating trees! The event is sponsored by Keep Van Alstyne Beautiful and will be held down town. If you’re not busy come visit us at our booth and help us celebrate these beautiful wonders! Visit Keep Van Alstyne Beautiful facebook page for more information about the event. www.facebook.com/pages/Keep-Van-Alstyne-Beautiful/226466227433929

By Dan Eakin, deakin@starlocalnews.com

The Chambersville Tree Farm’s Centennial Circle of Trees, consisting of more than 100 native and adapted trees of North Texas, will be formally dedicated at 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 13. The tree farm is located four miles north of McKinney off F.M. 543 near Weston.

The project is a combined conservation effort between the Chambersville Tree Farm and the Boy Scouts of America’s Lone Star District, which includes 56 Cub Scout and Boy Scout units located in McKinney, Anna, Blue Ridge, Farmersville, Melissa and Princeton.

This planned conservation and educational program includes the Chambersville Tree Farm providing more than 100 native and adapted trees for planting, with the Lone Star District’s scouting units providing the youthful manpower to assist in the planting, trail development, and perpetual maintenance of the tree circle.

The Centennial Circle of Trees is a Collin County Scouting conservation effort to help commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America, which was founded in 1910. Through their efforts in the project, local Scouting youth can learn more about nature, forestry, wildlife and water conservation while assisting in an educational program that will be available to local school districts, youth organizations and the public, for tours of the site.

When completed in 2011, the Centennial Circle of Trees will consist of more than 125 different tree species that can grow in the North Texas blackland prairie soils. Tree Farm officials plan to have at least 80 trees planted and identified when the tree circle formally opens Nov. 13.

For more information and directions to the Chambersville Tree Farm, visit www.chambersvilletreefarms.com.

McKinney Convention & Visitors Bureau, 321 N. Central Expwy, Ste 101, McKinney TX 75070, (214) 544-1407, 888-649-8499

McKinney Convention & Visitors Bureau

McKinney, TX — The trees at Chambersville Tree Farms are pampered, receiving only the best food, living conditions and a scenic view with wide open spaces to spread their branches. What more could a tree ask for, especially during a week when the nation is celebrating Earth Day and Arbor Day

Chambersville Tree Farms, Collin Countys only completely organic tree farm, sits on a 10-plus acre section of Dean Oswalds 266 acres a mere 10 minutes northwest of McKinney. The remainder of the acreage is filled with rolling wooded hills, ponds, lush iris and rose bushes.

Everything we do is organic. We dont use any herbicide, and we harvest rain water from the roof of the barn, Oswald says, pointing to several large cisterns located behind the barn.

This water is added to liquid drawn from the farms compost mixture of bark and dairy cow manure.

We only use dairy cow compost, never any sludge or anything containing human waste.

Oswald points to a good-sized pond across from rows of magnolia trees.

That pond collects water, too. Its 15 feet deep and its full now, as it was last year with all the rains, but I mowed the bottom of that pond during the drought of 2006. That drought nearly killed us, Oswald said.

The farm, which Oswald bought in the late 1990s and opened in 2004, shows no sign of suffering this year, though. In fact, Oswald and his crew of about a dozen are busy this spring expanding the tree portion of the farms to around 15 acres.

Were adding new fields and setting up additional irrigation, Oswald said, stopping to inspect some new rows of bald cypress trees part of his crew were working with.

The crew members were removing nearly 6-foot tall trees from plastic pots and placing them in the special white fabric pots favored at the farm for the way they stimulate and support healthy root growth.

Working at a steady pace, crew members placed the pots a carefully-measured distance apart, filling them with rich soil from the conveyer belt of a large trailer. Once new rows are complete, a sophisticated tubing system is put into place, running along the rows and directing the organic drink into the trees.

Larger trees are repotted into planter boxes the farm crew custom makes in the shop on the premises. These are located in the more mature tree section of the farm.

The trees raised at the farm were not grown from seeds here, but are instead brought in from other farms as small trees, Oswald and his farm manager Chad Simmons, a degreed biologist, explained. Both men share interesting stories about some of the unique varieties found on the farm, including a prehistoric-era tree found in a Chinese monastery many years after it was thought to be extinct.

The Chambersville Tree Farms offer every imaginable type of free, from a wide variety of crape myrtles, oaks, elms, magnolias and a large grove of varying sizes of Japanese maples.

This Burr Oak is like the tree we donated to the [City of McKinneys ceremonial] Arbor Day celebration [on Saturday, April 19], Simmons said, grabbing hold of one of the potted burr oaks that towered over his head.

The farm also sells a wide variety of rose bushes, none of which are grafted, but rather are all original root stock, Oswald explained.

During a recent foot-tour of the operation, Oswald and Simmons both stop to answer questions from visitors to the farm. Oswald also field questions about another of his points of pride the Chambersville Heritage Rose Garden, which sits on a hillside of his property, surrounded by woods not far from the rows of trees in his tree farm. This rose garden, a regular meeting spot for rose enthusiasts, is one of only four such gardens in the U.S, and will soon feature a gazebo. A large national gathering of rose enthusiasts plans to meet here in October.

The Chambersville Tree Farms is open to the public on weekends and some days of the week. Call ahead to (214) 295-1058 or check hours on the farm Web site, www.chambersvilletreefarms.com. The Web site also provides clear instructions for getting to the farm. The picturesque, relaxing 10 minute drive out FM roads 543 and 206 is well worth the trip for a visit to some of the happiest trees in Collin County.

For more information, contact: MCKINNEY CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU

Beth Shumate, Communication Services Manager

About McKinney CVB: The McKinney Convention & Visitors Bureaus vision is to generate economic impact by promoting and developing McKinney as a premiere destination for business and leisure travelers, so they fully experience McKinneys historic charm and friendly, unique atmosphere.

Chambersville Tree Farms, Inc. (CTF) was established to supply North Central Texas with quality trees, organically grown, at competitive prices.  Dean and his wife, Carol, have long been avid and knowledgeable gardeners. Dean is particularly interested in trees, while Carol is passionate about roses. Upon retirement, they launched a new business, which ultimately combines both of their special interests.

From the outset, conservation of the land has been the Oswald family’s mission. During construction of the nursery, care was taken to use and enhance topographic features for pond construction and rainwater harvesting; water conservation has been a key element in all planning. For growing, CTF uses a custom potting mix from Shamrock Soil Products, which provides the best in organic media and composted Texas native mulch.

CTF’s inventory consists of natives, as well as trees that are well adapted to our North Texas soils and climate. CTF uses Rootmaker certified products for enhanced root systems, which provides superior caliper and top growth, and purchases only Rootmaker liners, so that their trees develop the best possible root system from propagation to installation, ensuring that they will thrive after installation.

The small farming community of Chambersville, whose small church and cemetery are the last relics of its existence, gave its name to the farm. The property itself was once the Chandler family homestead and Mrs. Chandler was a renowned gardener in the area, which has given rise to another aspect of the present farm.

As they developed the farm, Dean and Carol envisioned a beautiful rose garden in this spacious natural setting, in part as a tribute to the former owner. With the encouragement and assistance of the Heritage Rose Foundation, and particularly, Claude Graves, the treasurer of the Foundation, Dean and Carol began work on the rose garden, which is devoted to only roses grown on their own roots.

After more than a year of design and construction of the garden and the purchase by Dean and Carol of almost every commercially available Tea, China and Noisette rose, planting began in the summer of 2006. The garden is laid out so that each rose has ample space to grow its natural mature size, in a setting akin to the locations where many of the Texas found roses were discovered by the notorious Texas Rose Rustlers twenty to thirty years ago. 145 roses have been planted to date; more than 70 cuttings are currently being grown out for future planting and additional varieties are being sought to complete the collection. In addition to its inherent beauty, the garden will serve as an ongoing demonstration of the best-adapted roses for north Texas’ climate and soil.

The Chambersville Heritage Rose Garden was dedicated on October 12, 2006, as part of the Heritage Rose Foundation’s Annual Conference, held in Dallas that year. The garden is private, but is open to heritage rose enthusiasts by appointment, and plans are being made to open the garden to the public several times a year, as well as for special events. As the garden matures and other amenities are added, many more events will be added to the calendar. For more information about the establishment and goals of the garden, as well as future updates, visit the Heritage Rose Foundation website,www.heritagerosefoundation.org.

The Oswald family has plans for many more subsidiary ventures on the farm, such as pick-your-own veggies, local fishing derbies and other family-oriented events.

On a warm spring day in 2004 my friend Dean Oswald called and asked me if I would come up to their farm and give them some advice on putting in a rose garden. I had known Dean and his wife Carol for a number of years as members of the Collin County Rose Society. They had graciously opened their magnificent garden at their home in Plano numerous times for the annual Collin County R S Garden Tour. Judging from my knowledge of their home garden I anticipated their thoughts for a “rose garden” at their farm would be something extraordinary.

Dean’s passion is trees, Carol’s passion is roses. I was soon to learn that the “farm” was actually a tree farm. Dean had started a new business in his retirement which dovetailed with this great interest in trees. Dean had founded Chambersville Tree Farms named for the small country church and cemetery adjoining his property. The church and cemetery stand as the last visible signs of the small farming community of Chambersville, Texas which is just a few miles north of McKinney, which is 30 miles north of Dallas. His property was the farmstead of the Chandler family. Mrs. Chandler had a reputation as a renowned gardener. It is said that people would come from miles around on Sunday afternoons to enjoy Mrs. Chandler’s garden. In fact my wife Pamela who was born and raised in McKinney remembers as a child doing exactly that. Although the original home is gone, each spring the legacy of Mrs. Chandler springs forth in a display of naturalized bulbs from her gardens. Dean felt that it was fitting to re-establish a beautiful garden on the property befitting the history of the land.

When Dean showed me the area that he envisioned as a rose garden my earlier feelings that this might be something special were confirmed. It was a beautiful plot about 5 acres in size bordered by a Lake on one side and a few native pecan trees on the other side with a grass meadow sloping down to a large water conservation lake beyond the pecan trees . I was excited about the possibilities for this wonderful site, but then Dean said, “But, maybe it would be better to put it here…” He walked me down behind the tank’s dam and thru an opening in the tree line which had been obscuring my view to the East.

The panorama before me was breathtaking. The area immediately in front of me was the continuation of the sloping grass meadow mentioned previously plus the area below the earthen dam forming the conservation lake. The entire area sloped gently to an almost dry creek bed to my left. Across the creek bed a complimentary area sloped gently upwards to a number of large native trees. This was the place for an extraordinary garden! The two areas combined looked to be about 20 acres which included perhaps 5 acres that were heavily wooded.

Dean and Carol were initially envisioning a beautiful garden of shrub and Hybrid Tea roses in traditional “beds” however they were concerned about the maintenance problem they might be creating. When I saw the property I saw something quite different!

For a number of years the Heritage Rose Foundation, of whom I am the Treasurer, had been discussing various garden schemes for HRF gardens. One of the main missions of the foundation from its inception in 1987 was the establishment of a national heritage rose garden. Over the years it became more apparent that the creation and operation of a garden by the foundation was not realistic both from an economic and geographic perspective. Discussions had begun to be developed by Gregg Lowery of Vintage Gardens, a Trustee of the Foundation, that a more logical approach was to recognize and support numerous regional public and private gardens around the country. (This concept has now expanded to around the world). The idea was to recognize and catalog gardens in different climatic zones that offer special interest to those that wish to study and preserve important heritage roses. It was anticipated that each garden in each unique environment would grow the roses that excelled in their climate, providing an opportunity to see those selected roses growing at their absolute best, while leaving the rest to be grown in other gardens in environs more suited to those rose’s needs.

When I saw Dean & Carol’s property it begged to become a repository for all the wonderful Teas, China’s and Noisette’s that grow so well in our Texas heat. One problem with these roses is that some can grow to quite enormous sizes. In most gardens they must be severely pruned to keep them confined to the available space. Here was a space of sufficient size to allow the roses to be grown to their natural mature size in a rural setting not unlike where many of the Texas found roses were discovered by the Texas Rose Rustlers in the late 1970′s and 1980′s.

At first Dean & Carol were not enthusiastic about the “old roses” but they warmed rapidly to the idea of vigorous healthy plants without spraying and massive pruning. I am happy to say that they have both come full circle now with more exposure to just how beautiful the Teas and Chinas can be with their continuous bloom and carefree manner. After a trip to the International Heritage Rose Conference in Duneden, New Zealand last December they are forever captive to old roses!

In addition to changing the content of the garden we also changed the concept of the garden from the traditional rose beds with neat straight rows of roses to a concept of roses planted in individual prepared sites (in effect a separate “bed” for each rose). The idea for this came from my memory of a garden my wife and I visited in France on the Post Tour of the Conference Internationale Des Roses Anciennes in 1999. This special garden was actually just a pathway around the periphery of a public golf course. Every hundred feet or so there was a rose planted as a singular specimen plant. Most if not all of the roses were species roses. The effect was startling with these massive roses standing alone very much as nature had intended them to be. We did not have the space of an entire golf course at Chambersville but we did have enough space to simulate roses growing in the wild at least on a limited scale.

Actual work on the garden began in 2005 with the purchase of most every Tea, China and Noisette that was commercial available from Mike Shoup at the Antique Rose Emporium and Mark Chamblee of Chamblee’s Roses. Additionally Gregg Lowery furnished many roses that were more unusual and less commonly available.

Chambersville Tree Farm is set up to grow out small nursery stock trees to larger sizes on a production basis, they are not equipped to take care of very small rooted cuttings and they have no propagation facilities. The very small roses, mostly from Vintage Gardens, were farmed out to the members of the Dallas Area Historical Rose Society (DAHRS) to be grown out to a larger size compatible with Chambersville’s capabilities. The larger one and two gallon roses were grown out at Chambersville in the same fabric bags used for trees. These bags were developed by Dr. Carl Whitcomb of Oklahoma State University and are designed to prevent root circling in the container. The roots actually penetrate the fabric bags very small pores then air prune. The result is a root that branches inside the container instead of circling. Evidentially the bags work great on roses as the roses demonstrated excellent growth during their time in both 7 and 15 gallon bags.

In the spring of 2006 actual site preparation work began. The initial garden design was done by Carolyn Hayward, currently President of the Collin County Rose Society and a professional garden designer. The original design centered around the concept of a “natural” looking field of roses, with just enough symmetry to not be chaotic. An important criteria in the design was that the China roses would be planted on 15 foot centers and the Tea roses planted on 20 foot centers. Over time the initial design was morphed by Dean and myself into a slightly more organized plan that included features added as we progressed. Stephen Scanniello, President of HRF and noted rose author, felt it was important that the garden incorporate the rich history of Texas found roses. We were in full agreement and added a section devoted to the roses found in Texas as the entrance to the garden. Individual sections are devoted to Tea roses and China roses. Noisettes will be displayed on pillars, fences and column/rope swag structures around the garden to provide an element of height. A section was also added to display a full collection of the Bermuda Mystery Roses. As the garden design evolves Stephen Scanniello is having significant influence on the project to make it a place of great beauty as well as a place to observe and study historical roses.

After staking out the location of every rose the next step was the improvement of the soil at each rose location. The soil improvement method used was a close adaptation of the technique recommended by the Texas Cooperative Extension in their EarthKindâ„¢ Rose and Environmental Soil System. Each rose location was first tilled with a tractor mounted tiller. A layer of fully composted tree trimmings and dairy cattle manure was added and then a layer of expanded shale was added and the area was again tilled. (Expanded Shale is a product of Texas Industries, Inc. it is produced by heating shale in a kiln to a temperature that expands the shale into a small porous aggregate. Texas Cooperative Extension has found that inclusion of expanded Shale into clay soils will greatly increase the friability and drainage of the soil).

After the site soil preparation the next step was to install an irrigation system. Here Dean outdid himself. A fully automatic irrigation system was installed that delivers water by way of individually controlled bubblers directly to the base of each rose. Then came the BIG day, the planting the first roses. I remember the story of the 100 year flood on the day they planted the San Jose Historical Rose Garden… Our experience was a little different, but just as memorable. It was August 15th, 2006 and the temperature reached 105 degrees. Over the next few weeks we planted 145 roses most of which had been growing for about a year and a half in 7 and 15 gallon containers. We finally found the most efficient way to plant them was to dig a hole at each site with a thirty inch auger on a tractor, two men then place the rose into the hole and removed the growing bag after placing the rose in the hole. The hole was then backfilled with the native clay soil/compost/expanded shale mixture. The roses were then heavily mulched. In spite of 28 consecutive days in August of temperatures over 100 degrees and no rain the roses thrived. We lost one rose out of the 145 we planted.

On October 12th 2006 a dedication ceremony was held to dedicate the Chambersville Heritage Rose Garden as part of the Heritage Rose Foundation’s Annual Conference held in Dallas. The dedication marked just the beginning of what we plan will be a significant resource for those rosarians wanting to study our heat loving historical roses. We currently have over 70 additional roses being grown out to sufficient size to plant in the ground. The current “Phase I” still has 150 empty irrigated holes to fill (Chinas and Teas) and Phase I only encompass 5.5 acres of the 25 acre site. We have lots of room for more roses!

The Chambersville Heritage Rose Garden is a private garden, however it is currently open to heritage rose enthusiasts on a pre arranged appointment basis. Plans are to schedule at least two weekends next year to have the garden open to the general public. We will also be planning HRF and DAHRS events in the garden. As the garden grows and matures we hope to make the garden available to the public more frequently.

We are asking for help from the heritage rose community to help us build our collection of Tea, China and Noisette roses. In the spirit of the HRF Garden Scheme we will be eager to share our roses with others to insure that more of the rare roses are grown in more locations to help preclude the loss of any more historically significant roses. We hope you will look upon the Chambersville Heritage Rose garden as one more link in the chain of protection for old roses. We solicit your help in providing unusual and endangered China, Tea and Noisette roses for our collection. Rooted cutting would be preferred however various members of the DAHRS and I are willing and able to root cuttings for the garden.