The World's Oldest Rose Breeder

Now here’s something I’ve never figured out. We buy all kinds of things based on their being created by a “favorite”. A favorite author, musician, artist, designer: so why not buy roses that way? Modern roses are bred by very talented artists and like many of our other “favorites” their work possesses a common thread.

If you like one book by an author it stands to reason you’ll probably like the others. And so it is with roses.

The late Jack Harkness wrote a book on rose breeders called "The Makers of Heavenly Roses"


I’ve always loved that title and in the spirit of that I thought I’d introduce you to some rose breeders. If you recognize some of their work as growing in your garden, I urge you try their other roses. Help Me Find Roses is a great place to explore roses organized by breeder.

So who is the World’s Oldest Rose Breeder? Was it someone who worked in the mountains of China thousands of years ago, or maybe in the Mid-East? Or perhaps a great naturalist dubbed Pliny the Pollinator?

Nope. The World’s Oldest Rose Breeder is still with us today. Don’t believe me? Get up from your computer and look out your window. There you will meet the World’s Oldest Rose Breeder. Nature herself. Long before Men and Women turned their hand towards breeding plants, Nature was hard at work using simple tools like birds, bees and butterflies.

So before we start talking about human rose breeders we will take a moment to thank Nature for giving us so many Heavenly Roses since time began.

After all, it’s not nice to diss Mother Nature.