Squatting in admiration before a particularly beautiful and promising rose seedling, I was startled by a friend walking up behind me. Naturally he was curious as to "what" I was so intently studying but his first question really jarred me.
Actually this man - who had almost no knowledge of roses, voiced the very question that had been running around and around in my mind. He said, "I see it is rose," but what is it?
He expected me to say, a cutting started from Radiance, Crimson Glory, Supreme or etc., but I really confused him by stating it came from seed. After several minutes of explanation he finally said, "I didnt know roses came from seed."
This led into a discussion of hybrid tea, grandiflora, hybrid perpetual and floribunda which completely mystified my visitor. Not being able to explain these terms to myself I could not clearly explain them to him.
The seedling in question is a good one to use for the purpose of a problem that eventually we are going to have to face and solve. For example, when Pernet-Ducher produced Soleil dOr some 100 years ago, the cross of tea roses with hybrid perpetuals was a fairly new thing.
To separate the "old" from the "new" the designation hybrid tea did very well. But what of today? Some recent introductions have hybrid perpetual ancestors in the immediate background.
It is generally realized that any change, no matter how good - is opposed because all people enjoy status quo to some extent. As an extreme example the Bible states (Ecclesiastes 7:1) "The day of death than the day of ones birth." But how we resent that day, we want no change.
Here is this seedling, typical of thousands now flowering daily in seed flats all over the world and being introduced to our landscape and gardens in very rapidly increasing numbers in the immediate decade. Certainly it is not a floribunda notwithstanding its immediate floribunda ancestor for the plant is going to be large and tall.
The flower is simply tremendous in size with a very tall bud carrying in excess of 75 petals. It could not possibly be accurately called a hybrid tea, for like this plant has a gallica bloom, stem, plant and unlike the old hybrid called Peace, a gallica coloring and fragrance.
It has the complete everblooming of Rosa chinensis. It has no visible tea character at all and could not be accurately called hybrid perpetual for it sets a bloom on every new twig which sprouts as seen in many rose gardens. If you have been tending or planting a rose garden you will notice that its bud is tall and pointed - massive, yes, but tall massive somewhat like Burnaby for size and shape.
Besides just what would hybrid perpetual really mean? Taken literally this would mean "a hybrid of a perpetual" and there is no such thing as a Rosa perpetual. My dictionary defines perpetual as never ceasing" - examples of this would be: life, death, birth, sin and taxes. Thus strictly speaking a "hybrid perpetual" would be a hybrid of death or taxes, which to me is void of meaning.
Actually this man - who had almost no knowledge of roses, voiced the very question that had been running around and around in my mind. He said, "I see it is rose," but what is it?
He expected me to say, a cutting started from Radiance, Crimson Glory, Supreme or etc., but I really confused him by stating it came from seed. After several minutes of explanation he finally said, "I didnt know roses came from seed."
This led into a discussion of hybrid tea, grandiflora, hybrid perpetual and floribunda which completely mystified my visitor. Not being able to explain these terms to myself I could not clearly explain them to him.
The seedling in question is a good one to use for the purpose of a problem that eventually we are going to have to face and solve. For example, when Pernet-Ducher produced Soleil dOr some 100 years ago, the cross of tea roses with hybrid perpetuals was a fairly new thing.
To separate the "old" from the "new" the designation hybrid tea did very well. But what of today? Some recent introductions have hybrid perpetual ancestors in the immediate background.
It is generally realized that any change, no matter how good - is opposed because all people enjoy status quo to some extent. As an extreme example the Bible states (Ecclesiastes 7:1) "The day of death than the day of ones birth." But how we resent that day, we want no change.
Here is this seedling, typical of thousands now flowering daily in seed flats all over the world and being introduced to our landscape and gardens in very rapidly increasing numbers in the immediate decade. Certainly it is not a floribunda notwithstanding its immediate floribunda ancestor for the plant is going to be large and tall.
The flower is simply tremendous in size with a very tall bud carrying in excess of 75 petals. It could not possibly be accurately called a hybrid tea, for like this plant has a gallica bloom, stem, plant and unlike the old hybrid called Peace, a gallica coloring and fragrance.
It has the complete everblooming of Rosa chinensis. It has no visible tea character at all and could not be accurately called hybrid perpetual for it sets a bloom on every new twig which sprouts as seen in many rose gardens. If you have been tending or planting a rose garden you will notice that its bud is tall and pointed - massive, yes, but tall massive somewhat like Burnaby for size and shape.
Besides just what would hybrid perpetual really mean? Taken literally this would mean "a hybrid of a perpetual" and there is no such thing as a Rosa perpetual. My dictionary defines perpetual as never ceasing" - examples of this would be: life, death, birth, sin and taxes. Thus strictly speaking a "hybrid perpetual" would be a hybrid of death or taxes, which to me is void of meaning.
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