I’ve been meaning to mention a piece I read in the local paper a few months back. Dick Streeper, gung-ho local rose grower and one of the founders of the Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden in San Diego’s amazing Balboa Park, mentioned in his piece how “The world’s leading commercial association of rose producers, All-America Rose Selections, in business since 1939, has recently lost about two-thirds of its members. That has caused a substantial drop in rose sales and a drop in the numbers of good new varieties being introduced. Identifying and buying good, newly introduced roses is suddenly more difficult.”
I wonder, though, if the drop in rose sales actually led to the drop in AARS memberships and not the other way around. There was a point a couple decades back when the splashy hybrid teas and floribundas with their rose-show flower shapes started to get passed over as people seemed to move towards the nostalgic beauties of the David Austin roses, flowers that looked like old roses but had a lot of the modern rose qualities of more reliable repeat blooming and somewhat better disease resistance. Other breeders participated in this renaissance and old timey roses were all over.
It’d be interesting to sales reports for all these plants. I wonder if we, the fickle public, just got tired of them. Or at least we didn’t see anything new and shiny to take their place and stopped buying them in the same numbers. Roses can live for a long time, and really, how many roses do you need to buy in a lifetime? And for fickle gardeners, has there been anything new and exciting to cause us to uproot some of the plants we have?
I’ve mentioned before that I had over a hundred plants in the house where I grew up. My current living situation is down to just one rose. And that one got dug up from its spot in the garden and plopped in a pot this past autumn. It’s one of the plants I planted at my parent’s house in the 1970s and the only plant that I brought with me. I hope it survives the recent transplant. So far so good.
Even that plant is the green rose, a variety dating to the early 1800s and possibly the 1700s. And the last rose I bought was one of our local species Rosa minutifolia (a rose which did not survive an attempted transplant). So you can see I haven’t been doing much lately to support rose breeders…
I’m afraid that I’m doing the AARS no favors either. I seldom recommend roses to clients, with the exception of Rosa glauca (syn. R. rubrifolia)and Rosa rugosa hybrids which I have in my home garden. Part of the problem where I live is that roses are simply deer food, with the exception of R. rugosa. Not to mention that most roses are succeptible to diseases that thrive in our moist climate. I think that a rose MUST be fragrant to warrant the effort it requires–and so many of the tough, disease free ones lack this charm. Though I must say I might go to the extra work for your cool green rose.
We have roses, but I want them fragrant, or beautiful, preferably BOTH. Rather than this season’s freak. We buy our roses at Ludwig’s, and they opened a nursery in the Western Cape, kindly just in time for us to plant in our new garden. They do need watering in summer, and for that effort the roses we chose must be special.
Roses are dead, long live the roses. I have no interest in them and would say that the majority of our clients aren’t interested, but we do get occasionally get clients requesting them. I actually find it difficult in those instances; because I don’t like them, I have a hard time figuring out what a rose lover would want.
I don’t think it is the rose in particular that is losing sales though I’d be inclined to think that the less AARS members the less roses that are purchased. I think the fact that every backyard breeder out there is breeding flowers and plants and making such a wide variety available to everyone is the reason for the drop in sales that certain elitists used to enjoy simply because they had the market wrapped up. Now a days folks can go to Lowes or some other big box store and get anything they want very cheaply. I’m not sure how those stats add up in sales of all roses but it seems like these roses would be discounted and therefore not show as much in sales? Or there again, it may be that with the droughts and recent rise in consciousness about spraying and maintenance that the American public has shied away from roses. I know I would never ever buy a special cultivar of roses just to have it. All my very few roses are easy no spray or care roses. They have to be because I am too busy elsewhere, as are many other folks in society. Which brings me to another facet of the argument-is it possible the Knockout series are taking from the All America club fans? I don’t know what the issue is but I think the economy has a way of working it out for roses. The growers will have to adapt and change to changing tastes or go the way of the dinosaurs. The AARS is the same way. Garden clubs across America in general are having troubles getting and keeping members so it is probably more than just roses. Anyhow, don’t mean to be such a talker but that is just the debater in me coming out…. Have a grand weekend James. Love that green rose. I certainly would expect your one rose to be a bit different as your garden is so unique.
I pay very little attention to the roses that were here when we moved in, but they thrive and make bouquet-worthy blossoms anyway. Maybe they are only finicky if pampered?
Plants go in and our of fashion, so I wouldn’t count roses out just yet.
Colleen, the New York times had a recent piece about the new tough-as-nails generation of roses that unfortunately were also about as un-fragrant as nails. I guess I’m fortunate(?) to live where deer aren’t a problem, though they used to roam through these hills before suburbia sprawled.
EE, I’ve seen at least one of your posts where you feature your roses. They seem like a rewarding and special part of your garden. I enjoy the scents of many roses, especially those that are on the spicier, peppery-er end of the spectrum.
Ryan, the roses I grew up with were definitely prima donna rose-garden roses, not ones designed for getting along well with other plants in a landscape. I could see some of the informal species, maybe some of the pink natives, mixed into your plantings. But I’d guess most of your clients want rose-garden varieties.
Tina, thanks for your thoughtful comments. I enjoyed reading them. The whole changing economy of the horticultural industry–and it is an industry–is a fascinating topic. How do social and cultural ideas gets expressed in gardens? You mention the disease-resistant roses that thrive without spraying, and that definitely seems to be an adjustment to people wanting to go greener in their gardening practices. As more of the landscape roses get greater play, I think that what is dying out is the old-fashioned notion of what a “rose” should be. But roses will be always be around in some form.
Ricki, I’m definitely not counting them out totally. But I wonder if things like gardening programs on TV and the web today are giving people more ideas of what they could be growing, not just roses.
I have several roses, here before I moved in, which I come to really love. Yes, there are problems with disease and all, but I always think I’ll make a better effort to take care of them. They really are very reliable though and I personally think they’re very beautiful. I love a single petaled rose as well as the roses with enormous petal counts! And fragrance wise??? NOTHING beats an old fashioned tea rose.
btw, I do find it so sad that the organization has lost 2/3 of it’s members.
Looking at the gardens around here, it seemed that roses had their heyday along with camellias in the 50’s. Perhaps that generation has given way to something else? I always wonder what landscape designers are going to look for to date the garden in 50 years- bamboo?
I commiserate with Ryan- my clients somehow assume I hate roses just because I warn them of all the maintenance issues, but I actually find them enchanting when they’re not covered with blackspot, rust, mildew, aphids, etc…
I have to give props to the green rose, however. That’s pretty special.