I've been watching this post all week to see if the mystery person would step up! Beop - I want to see the roses now too!

Okay, enuf is enuf. PLEASE post at least ONE picture of this yard!

YES!! thank you Tom I was thinking the same thing, now my curiousity bump has got me, I'd love to see that rose garden!! sally

lol!! makes me wanna drive to Wimauma and search for this house just to see the roses!! LOL

I will definitely take a picture this weekend, hope they don't think I'm a creep :)

YAY! Thanks for taking one for the team, Beop. Maybe print this thread and put it on their door and invite them to come look at the photos. :)

Here's the house! I was so tempted to walk up this person's driveway but I lost my nerve across the street :).

Yay! Enough clues to find it on Google Street View. See link below.

Carol in Jacksonville

Here is a link that might be useful: Google Maps

Wow, they really grew from the time the google picture was taken. I wonder what kind of roses (s)he planted. Looks like some of them are in Earthboxes of some sort.

WOW!!!! that is sure some rose-garden, they are huge! and they are green w/leaves! and flowers! I don't see any BS there, maybe you can find out her/his secret...maybe they spray?? and they are on a lake? gorgeous, if it wasn't so far-away I'd love to at least drive-by and admire up close.... thanx for the pic, sally

Sure would be nice to know how they do it, no doubt about their knowledge and experience....

how about leaving a note in the mailbox mentioning this thread and how curious we all are?
Lori

Why don't we all send them letters? We have the address now :).

Wow - Carol how clever of you to get the Google location!

When I first saw this Subject Line about Holy Roses in Wimauma, my first thought was that they must be near the Church of God, the "holy roller" church. And sure enough, a little further down this street I could see the church - right here on my computer!

Just fascinating.

Anyways, thanks for taking the picture, BeOpposed. That property looks like a little piece of heaven. Maybe they have horses and a steady supply of manure.

Susie

I sure would like to know what they're doing, because it's definitely primo!

Tom

OMG this mouse is driving me crazy! It is double clicking every time I use it!

I've passed by that house a few times. I have only seen anyone outside 1 time. It was an older man; I didn't even think to stop. But now since I've read this post next time I drive by & see anyone outside I'll stop, I'm just too chicken to ring someone's doorbell :)

Please note that the street address in Google Images is "approximate".

If you move one position to the right using the white angle bracket/chevron at the bottom, you can see a (the?) gardener.

Carol in Jacksonville

Yes, I see him! He's pulling the hose to water in the fertilizer.

It's Mr. Prevatt . . . maybe he still lives there!

Well, what has happened w/this garden???? I've been sitting here w/bated breath waiting for more info., and more pics, maybe some close-ups of those roses, maybe w/names?? does he spray?? yikes, don't keep us/me in suspense any longer!! sally

I am unable to confirm the house number. Goole link above says 5363, but mapquest says no house there. Mr. Prevatt lives at 5307, but google earth seems to show a different house for that. What is it?

Clarence & Karen Prevatt
PO Box 310
Wimauma, FL 33598

That is the info on the tax records for the Prevatts - but Larry are you sure that is the right house?

Larry? The floor plan provided by the County matches the Bing birdseye view - so, I am pretty sure that is the house. 5307

sorry Tom...going too fast again...and thanks for checking behind me.

The sign by the driveway says 5307 . . . .
but today the gardener isn't out!

so this is near you Susie? Maybe I'll just stop by on Saturday on my way from the Caladium Festival

Hi Tina
It's probably not really on your way home from here, but it is closer to you than me. Google Maps says you're about 50 miles from Wimauma.

But that Google Map-thing that Carol linked to allows you to zoom in really, really close - you can see the cig butts on the street - and when I first clicked on it, there was the man in a pink shirt and white shorts pulling a hose in the yard. But when I clicked on it today to get the house number from that sign, I could not see the man anywhere.

Does it have anything to do with the satellite that takes the pictures from outer space?

Well, if I lived closer, I'd prance my little fanny right up and ask their secret because my roses look like the devil right now in this heat.

Susie, it has to do with the position of the Google Street View camera vehicle. Some of the pictures were taken while the vehicle was east-bound and others were taken when it was west-bound. Depending upon where you click in the Street View image, you can jump from one photo to another - and not realize that the photos were not taken seconds apart, but rather maybe much later... when the vehicle had turned around and was headed in the other direction!

See images of the Google Street View camera vehicle linked below.

Carol in Jacksonville

Here is a link that might be useful: Google Street View vehicle

That is interesting abt. Google street, wonder how often they take these pics, and how would a person find out if they have been on their street, and taken pics of their house? sally

It's very simple. Go to Google Maps, put in your street address at the top and click the blue magnifying glass (Search). If the Google car has a picture of your house, there will be a photo of your home or front yard on the left-hand side of the page. If there is no photo, either they haven't been down your street or there is no photo indexed for the exact address that you entered in the Search bar.

Click on the photo to open Street View. Once you are in Street View, you can pan around, zoom in and out, and lots of other fun things. When you are done with Street View and want to go back to aerial view, click on the white X in the upper right corner of the Street View picture.

As an example, I've linked the Google Maps search for the approximate address for the house with the roses. See link below. When it opens, notice the photo on the left. (Note that the photo is NOT of the house - it is of the street, because the address is approximate. If your address is entered correctly, you should see a photo of YOUR HOUSE if Google has one.) If you pan around, you can find the roses to the south.

Have fun!
Carol in Jacksonville

Here is a link that might be useful: Google Maps - Roses address

O K Carol
I've been clicking and panning and zooming around this address, but I can't seem to get to that place where I was when I saw the gardener. In that view, the roses were way bigger. almost like a big hedge along the road. So that must've been a more recent camera shot.

Somewhere I saw imbedded white letters within the picture that said something like "Google 2011".

Anyways, when I first heard about Google maps, I typed in the DC address of my grandparents' old bungalow and "drove" down their street where my Dad played stickball as a little boy. That was an amazing thing to do!

Susie

Susie, the reason the photos change are explained in my posts above. Numerous photos are taken when the vehicle is headed in each direction. You can see all of the photos by moving your position to the right or left using the white angle bracket/chevrons at the bottom of the photo. (They look like this: "".) The month and year are displayed on the bottom of each photo.

So cool that you saw the old family home. Just last week, I helped my mother look up her childhood home in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She was so excited to see it - but even more excited to see all the houses up and down the street where she used to play! (She just turned 80 and moved to Jacksonville in 1961. Her parents sold the home in 1970.)

Carol in Jacksonville

Today is the DAY!!!! I am going to knock on the door and if no one home...leave this post.

Tina

You go, girl!!!!! A woman after my own heart. I check this thread every day to see if someone has discovered their secrets.

What a SHAME!!! No one was home. I took photos and dropped off a copy of this post. With any luck we'll hear from the wonderful rose gardener family soon!

WOW!!!! Thank you Tina! What gorgeous roses and no bugs or BS...I think they must spray however, as I see what appears to be white spray-residue on some leaves.... I am sick w/envy, and am re-thinking my 'no-spray' stance, I don't spray because of birds and bees and B-flys, but I don't seem to see any more now than I did years ago when I did spray, it's a hard decision.... I'd sure love to have a rose garden that looked like that one..... hopefully the folks will contact us and give us more info.abt. names of roses and spray they use.... THANKS again Tina, sally

All this time I've been blaming the heat for my roses looking so terrible in July and August. Perhaps it isn't that at all. It obviously isn't bothering these roses. Double WOW!!!

Wow is the right word to describe it. I did notice the spray residue. I'm sure that helps with the blackspot, but there's more to it than that. When I used to spray my roses never looked that good. Those look like modern roses with no obvious graft unions.

I'd guess the secret is the soil. They've built raised beds and probably fill them with primo compost, humus, and fertilizer. It makes me want to give up one of my veggie beds to the roses.

I hope they make an appearance on the forum or write a book or something to let us know how they do it. Their roses look 10 times better than Disney's.

Great job, Tina! Sorry for going MIA, I've been super busy this past month. Yeah, those roses are amazing -- even MORE so than I thought -- I know I have never seen any that look so great.

More Information:

ROSE GROUP: The South County Rose Group meets at 2 p.m., Jan. 23, at the home of Clarence and Karen Prevatt, 5307 State Road 674, Wimauma. There will be a rose pruning demonstration in their garden. Call (813) 634-1830.

If you want to learn how he does it...JOIN!! Read this great article attached:

Here is a link that might be useful: Not So Secret Garden Article

So he spends 25-30 hours a week on those roses and sprays every 3 days. I guess that would explain why my roses don't look as good as his :) God bless him. I bet he has the nicest rose garden in Florida.

On a similar note, here in Lake Placid, we had a Rose Man, too. Tina and I saw a mural dedicated to him.
I'm pretty sure the tour guide said he passed away at 90.

Check out these links and you can see a glimpse of his garden and read all about what he did with his roses.
It's pretty cool!

This is a video that shows a second of his lakefront backyard and some rose bushes.

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500617_162-3132106.html

Susie

Here is a link that might be useful: Tampa Bay Times article

Well, that answers all of our ????--- thank you- thank you-----spray - spray- spray-spray...... sure nice to know it IS possible here in BS - chili-thrip heaven, makes me feel so inadequate, however.... guess I'm going to have to do some re-modeling of my garden, if I want better-looking roses....put all the bee-butterfly-bird plants in the back yard and get out that sprayer, or get a spray-man.... do any of you other rosies plan on changing your life-style? and thanks to the kind folks who did all the foot-work on this query, bless you......sally

I'm not going to change. I'm going to continue to tolerate imperfection in the summer. When I spray I either feel guilty about harming the insects and lizards or I worry about developing some disease someday. My health is more important than the roses' health. Honestly when I used to spray, I'd get too lazy to do it frequently enough in the summer and I still saw blackspot. There's no way I'd do it every 3 days. I do spray spinosad for chilli thrips when I see their damage. I humbly admit I'm not in the rose man's league.

I don't plan on changing either. I'll just enjoy mine in spring and fall.

When I am retired I may spend more energy on my garden. Right now its all I can do to get through the basics. I have promised myself to find new homes for the plants I am not completely in love with and to not replace plants that can't take the summer heat and dry periods. I just don't have the energy to water, fertilize, prune, and weed everything! But Sally, I can't wait to see what your roses look like in a few months. : If you want to try one of those Rose Club meetings I'll go with you.

I hate this mouse.

You know, I can think of a good home for your unwanted plants -- my house! :)