TUPELO – If Tracy Shane Kramer tells you she has an affinity for roses, believe her.
When the Delaware native sold her home in Pontotoc, where she’d lived for 15 years, she left behind about 140 roses she’d planted in her yard. She moved to The Cottages in Tupelo in 2019. Before signing the contract, which said residents could not plant within six feet of the foundation, Kramer got the wording changed to allow her to plant a few roses. Today, she has more than 80.
Kramer credits Pontotoc friends Maxine and John Patterson with her now-extensive knowledge of roses.
“They had 200 to 300 roses,” she said. “Maxine was my mentor; she took me to rose shows.”
Now Kramer is one of only 10 Advanced Master Gardeners in the state of Mississippi. She has dual membership in the Union and Lee county Master Gardeners, and she’s a member of the Northeast Mississippi Rose Society as well as the Memphis Rose Society and the Junior League of Memphis Garden Club.
She’s also an American Rose Society Consulting rosarian. People who know her well, and even some who don’t, often call her “The Rose Lady.”
Kramer happily admitted in the beginning she was not adept at roses.
“I wasn’t good at it,” she said. “I made all the mistakes you could make. But now I go out and talk to those roses. I can spot problems. Learning about roses just takes time.”
Kramer’s migration to Mississippi was not by accident.
“I’d been coming to Mississippi since I was 8 to visit family members in Randolph,” she said. “It was my happy place, where I spent my summers riding horses, walking to the movies — things this urban girl was not able to do at home.”
Kramer always enjoyed gardening. She had her first flower garden when she was 16. It was horseshoe-shaped.
“I always loved watching things grow,” she said.
With roses, Kramer is not a stickler for purchasing only expensive, high-quality roses.
“I buy them everywhere — at grocery stores, big box stores — and people sometimes give me roses,” she said. “And I have bought expensive roses all the way down to nothing. I rescued a rose from a box store once for a dollar.”
Not long after Kramer moved into her cottage at Traceway, COVID showed up.
“I was bored,” she said, laughing. “I started ordering roses online. I ordered and ordered. I planted and kept planting. I took some rose courses online.”
Kramer enjoys caring for her many roses — she deadheads every morning. She can diagnose threats to her roses, like the invasive species chilli thrips or rose rosette virus. She grows roses for the pure joy it brings her, but she also loves sharing them with friends and nonprofits.
When a new neighbor moves into her neighborhood or there is a death, Kramer delivers rose bouquets. She takes roses to her bridge club and book club gatherings, to church and other places.
For the past 20 years, Kramer has taken part in the Northeast Mississippi Rose Society Annual Rose Show, most often held the Thursday before Mother’s Day.
This year’s rose show will be from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. Thursday in the main lobby of Renasant Bank, 209 Troy Street.
Anyone may enter their roses in the show. They do not have to be rose society members.
This will be the 25th year for the show.
In the two decades she’s been entering, Kramer has won all the prizes at one time or another for her roses.
“I have never kept up with the numbers,” she said.
When pressed to name just a few of her favorite roses, Kramer quickly tossed out three, but later, she continued to add to the mix.
There’s Gemini, a hybrid, light pink but gets darker as it gets warm or ages. Elina, a pale yellow hybrid and Hot Princess, a deep, deep pink. Gold Medal and Tineke, a hybrid tea rose.
Kramer will likely enter many roses in the show to help fill the tables.
Before the show, she and other rose growers will groom their entries. There are all manner of rules — what can and cannot be done to prepare a rose for entry.
“Nothing can go on the leaves to shine them except water,” Kramer said. “You can use your fingers and the natural oils will shine the foliage. I use tiny little scissors to trim imperfections from leaves and I also have a little paintbrush to clean off the leaves.
“By the time I pack my sedan to take my things to the show, there will not be room in the car for my purse.”