Rambling Roses : When It Came Time to Move, Chris Greenwood’s Hybrids Got the Personal Touch
When Chris Greenwood moves, his roses move with him.
The amateur rose hybridizer recently sold his house in Baldwin Park to move to Glendora, and he wrote into the sale contract that he would be taking about 100 rose bushes. Leaving behind his prize plants was no more an option than leaving his two children.
So for months, Greenwood has been digging up roses and transferring them temporarily into five-gallon containers, which filled his driveway.
On moving day recently, he trusted all his household furnishings, crystal, china and other personal possessions to professional movers. But not the roses. Those he drove to his new home in a pickup.
“There’s a science to moving roses,” he said. “The canes are brittle, and the new growth can be easily knocked off. The cans must be handled carefully so the new, fragile feeder roots aren’t damaged.”
Actually, Greenwood has only moved a fraction of his garden, which, in all, contained about 350 plants, plus about 30 rare cycads, which he also took along.
“Some of these bushes are too old to move,” Greenwood explained. “I’m a connoisseur of roses, and the ones that are rare or very special to me are worth the effort it takes to move them to my new house.”
Among his most treasured bushes are several specimens of a variety he created, a floribunda rose he named “Tootsie.” It was introduced commercially this year at Armstrong Garden Centers.
Tootsie has a colorful characteristic termed “painting.” This means the petals look like an artist has hand-painted them with overlaying colors. Depending on sun or temperature, the colors change. Roses don’t paint in all climates, and that’s largely why Tootsie is being sold only in California.
Greenwood is an accredited judge and consulting rosarian with the American Rose Society. In addition, he’s a past president of the Pacific Rose Society and a respected rose exhibitor. That’s in his spare time. For work, he manages the Armstrong Garden Center in Monrovia.
In hybridizing, he’s still considered an amateur. But, by creating a rose that made it onto the marketplace, he’s joined a select group of horticulturists, most of whom have far greater resources than he does.
The major companies that produce and sell roses in the United States are Jackson & Perkins, in Medford, Ore., and Weeks Roses, in Upland. Each year, these and other smaller companies cross thousands of roses in the elusive attempt to find the perfect rose. Ideally, it has great disease resistance, produces masses of blooms, has very attractive form and color, and if it has fragrance that’s even better.
“It’s very hard for an amateur to develop a new rose that actually reaches commercial introduction,” said Tom Carruth, hybridizer for Weeks Roses. “It’s really a numbers game.”
Every year, Carruth starts with seed from 150,000 different rose varieties. He decides which roses will be pollinated with carefully selected donor roses to produce the seeds.
About half of the 150,000 seeds actually germinate. He then culls all but 1,200 of the new varieties. Six to 10 of each kind are planted each spring in the firm’s growing fields in Wasco, Calif., where they are grown and evaluated for a year. Only 30 or 40 varieties are retained. These are propagated so a larger number of plants can be further tested. After rigorous observation and analysis, only three or four varieties actually are brought out for sale to the public.
Tootsie was subjected to this evaluation process. Greenwood observed his initial seedling in his garden and believed he had a good one. He persuaded Carruth to observe it, and he agreed that the little seedling--already blooming just a few months after planting--showed promise.
Additional plants were made from bud wood off the parent and planted in Wasco. From that first seedling created in 1987, an additional 15 were observed. Tootsie passed the test, and plant stock was carefully built up.
This year, a limited number, 400 bushes, were offered for sale at Armstrong. They sold out within a few months as word of the new rose spread quickly among other rose hobbyists. Next year, Armstrong plans to offer a larger quantity for sale to meet the expected demand.
Meanwhile, Greenwood plans to create his new garden and keep hybridizing.
“Most of the seedlings you get are of no value, but there’s always the chance you’ll get lucky and produce a good one,” he said. “I don’t expect to make any money at this--I do it because it’s a lot of fun.”
