Growers and Breeders

Growers And Breeders

 

There are some companies that are both breeders and growers of roses. This can cause confusion!

 

Rose Growers vs. Rose Breeders

 

Rose Growers are companies or people who actually grow rose plants via various propagation methods for sale to either garden centers or directly to the public.

 

Rose Breeders are people or companies who create (or hybridize) entirely new varieties of roses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Propagation of roses can be achieved by either grafting or cuttings. Grafting is the most common method in Europe. A bud eye from the leaf axial of the desired type of rose is grafted on to wild rootstock. This method begins with planting the rootstock, then the grafting and finishes when the rose is ready to be “harvested”. The entire process takes about twenty months.

 

Some rose varieties are grown as “own-root-roses”. These are propagated via cuttings from the desired rose. In some cases roses from cuttings tend to remain slightly smaller and not all varieties can be propagated this way. Own-root-roses have advantages and disadvantages for both the grower and the customer. Advantage for the grower is they can be produced more quickly and for the customer you never suffer from the wild rootstock coming up in the form of “suckers”. A sucker is simply a cane that grows up from the wild rootstock instead of the desired variety. A drawback is that not all roses can grow well on their own-roots. Additionally own-root roses can “run” which means their roots spread and produce new plants well away from the original plant.

 

Currently Bierkreek grafts its roses on to solid, sturdy old rootstocks. If you plant your rose according to our guide, you will hardly be affected by suckers. Furthermore, the rootstocks used by Bierkreek, mostly R. canina (the dog rose) and eglantine will help your roses last a long time. Roses grafted onto these rootstocks are very frost resistant and color and fragrance are optimal.

 

Virtually all other rose growers in Europe use a rootstock known as “Laxa”. Laxa has an excellent success rate for the grower and suckers less than canina and eglantine. However, these things that are important for the grower but not for our customers. You are best served with a rose that will last, be strong and healthy plus have good fragrance and color. For these reasons we use the rootstocks we do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frequent, focused crossing of roses via their pollen creates new bloodlines. Color, smell, shape and health are usually the criteria the breeders use. Unfortunately there are still too many breeders for whom color, scent and shape are the most important and health is well down the list. Breeding roses is an expensive and time consuming process. Therefore, most new roses that come onto the market are protected in some way.

 

Bierkreek tests almost all the new varieties from Barni Roses in Italy and The English breeder Gareth Fryer. Additionally we offer roses from the German nurseries Kordes and Tantau, Poulsen from Denmark, Meilland from France and Interplant and De Ruiter which are Dutch companies. They nursery of our Belgian colleagues Lens Roses are also a major player in this market.

 

Unfortunately there are some breeders that do not like to see their roses grown organically.   They argue that their roses can be only be grown by large companies. We feel this is unfortunate because it means you cannot purchase organically grown roses from breeders such as Delbard or Austin.

 

To compensate for this, Bierkreek works with many smaller, lesser known breeders of roses. As a result we have original roses from Sean McCann, Kim Rupert, Paul Barden, Ralph Moore, Dot, Robert Neil Rippetoe, Pierre Rutten, Rolf Sievers, Brad Jalbert and many others. This allows us to offer something special that no one else has.

 

We do our best to properly represent many small rose breeders. Because breeding roses is expensive and time consuming they are generally protected by either two ways:

 

Trademark

Patenting

 

Trademarking or Patenting a variety is usually too expensive for most small rose breeders. Therefore, Bierkreek voluntarily sets aside a small portion from the sales of each variety to pay royalties to the breeders. For more information on trademark or Patent law and breeder’s rights see the relevant sections of our website.