Life Is a Bed of Roses--His Creations Bloom Worldwide
When Ralph Moore went to the bank a few weeks ago he took along a pink and yellow miniature rose plant.
He stopped by the desk of Mary Hill, the assistant vice president. “What a gorgeous rose,” Hill said. “It’s my favorite color, pink.”
“It’s my newest flower,” Moore explained. “I want to name it after a friend, but I need her permission first.”
“What a lucky person. She will just love it,” the banker said.
“Will you give me your permission?” Moore asked.
Recalling that moment, Hill, longtime banker for Moore, told how she was “flabbergasted. Imagine having a rose named after you. It immortalizes you.”
“Especially miniature roses created by Ralph Moore. They go all over the world.”
Moore, 82, is one of the world’s best-known rose breeders. He has developed and named more than 300 varieties of flowers and plants over the last 68 years, 90% of them miniature roses.
A plant breeder since 1921, he has been naming flowers he creates after people, places, events and many other things since he was a 14-year-old sophomore at Visalia High School.
Miniature roses he created are growing in every state, in Canada, and all over Europe, the Mideast, Africa, the Far East, Mexico, South America, Australia and New Zealand. Many are named for people who live in this San Joaquin Valley town.
“The first rose I originated I named after Shelby Wallace, one of my best friends in high school. He died when we were both sophomores,” Moore recalled.
Anita Charles, a coral-red-on-yellow miniature rose, is named after a good friend who sings in his church’s choir. Rose Gilardi, a slender mossy-red-and-pink-striped rose, is named after a woman he knows who raises roses in San Francisco and runs a beauty shop there.
Little Mike is a rose he named after a grandson who was a baby at the time and is now teaching sixth grade in Exeter. The popular Ann Moore, a bright orange rose, is named after his wife.
Bit O’ Sunshine was named years ago by a little girl in a Sunday school class that Moore taught. “I brought in this new flower and she piped up: ‘Mr. Moore, that looks just like a bit of sunshine.’ ”
Walking through one of the many greenhouses at his six-acre Sequoia Nursery, Moore observed that some plants name themselves. He pointed out a bed of roses called Ring of Fire, glowing yellow blooms etched with red that look like a ring of fire, and another variety called Magic Carousel, white roses with red edges that resemble a merry-go-round.
He named a miniature rose Over the Rainbow because the colors made him think of the song from “The Wizard of Oz.” He came up with a striped, red and yellow miniature rose at the time of the Coalinga earthquake. The rose is called Earthquake.
When the Armenian community in Yettem, a small town near Visalia, celebrated its 75th anniversary, Moore named a miniature purple rose St. Mary in honor of its church.
“ Yettem means Garden of Eden in Armenian. The community put on a big banquet for their 75th anniversary, and my wife and I were special guests,” Moore said.
“I was enjoying Dorothy Hamill skating on television one night and decided I would name a rose after her. I wrote her agent for permission to do so and he wrote back saying he wasn’t interested,” Moore said.
“Dorothy Hamill probably never saw the letter. It’s too bad. That rose, now called Rise ‘n Shine, is considered the best yellow miniature in the world today.”
Nearly 200 of Moore’s flowers are patented. Moore, who receives 8% of the retail price for 17 years, derives a large part of his income from these royalties. He has 10 employees at his nursery.
Years ago when his daughter, Eleanore Bergthold, now a teacher in Roseville, attended Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Moore named a shrub that he developed the Westmont Arborvite. He has donated all royalties from the plant--$35,000 to date--to the school’s student loan fund.
Moore lives next to his nursery and can be found seven days a week breeding and developing new miniature roses in his greenhouse when he is not on the road.
He attends rose shows and conventions and delivers papers and programs about miniature roses throughout this country and overseas. He has won numerous awards and is one of three Americans presented the prestigious Dean Hole Medal by the Royal National Rose Society of England. He has authored three books about miniature roses.
Moore has never named a miniature rose after himself, but another breeder did name a test variety that Moore’s nursery had developed. He called it Ralph’s Creeper and the name stuck. Its blooms are bright red with large yellow eyes.
Whenever Moore travels he sees his creations. While attending a World Rose meeting in Israel in 1981, for example, he visited the nation’s biggest kibbutz.
“My wife and I had a thrill. At the entrance to the kibbutz there was a large bed full of miniature roses. They were Mona Ruths, a rose I developed and named after our daughter, Mona Ruth Sorenson.”
