About the evaluation method of rose varieties, perhaps you can provide some help!

Long time no see. I hope to learn about everyone’s evaluation criteria and starting points for a rose variety, as well as different perspectives. In fact, I agree more with this statement: “The characteristics of different rose varieties are determined by their evolutionary background. Different environments have formed the characteristics of different varieties, rather than a distinction between good and bad. Choosing rose varieties should meet personal needs and the environment. Consumers should know their own conditions and then find the most suitable variety among the different options.”

Some friends may think that a poor performance of a rose is entirely due to defects in the rose itself, and then attack the variety and breeder. But in fact, no one can guarantee that a rose can adapt to all environments, including native varieties, which cannot do so either.

So, what are your thoughts on this? I’m really looking forward to you joining the discussion!!! If you would like to learn about other aspects of the Chinese rose industry, you can also contact me through private messages or other means.

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I certainly agree. My father an I both grow roses in North Carolina, but we live about one-hundred miles apart. The soil and conditions are fairly different in our gardens, despite the relatively close proximity. We share a few of the same cultivars, and there are noticeable differences, particularly in the scent of the roses.

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Thank you for your response. It’s really amazing. A friend once sent me some roses that were grown in Southwest China, while I was living in the North China Plain. According to some records, the summer there is hot and humid, and the winter is cold and rainy. It is also the area with the weakest sunlight in the country. To be honest, this doesn’t seem to be suitable for the growth of some roses. So, when I received the seedlings, they looked a bit weak and had many diseased spots on their leaves. Fortunately, when I replanted them in a new environment, they grew quickly and healthily, even without fungicides. The roses demonstrated that different varieties have different characteristics and personalities and will exhibit different states in different environments. There is no doubt that they are alive.

The seemingly uniform commercial standards are not capable of restricting them in terms of fragrance resistance and other aspects. In the promotion of merchants, they always give a qualitative evaluation of a variety based on the results of tests conducted in a certain area. When a variety performs well in their experimental field, they promote it to the public as “an excellent rose variety.”

What’s even more ridiculous is that a French breeding company prohibits Chinese growers from talking about their own growing experiences, especially those related to negative experiences with particular varieties. If you don’t comply, you will be blocked by the official account of the relevant brand and banned from leaving messages on its official account and related content. Moreover, relevant staff have directly told Chinese growers that “if the roses do not grow well, it is their own fault” (with a contemptuous expression in the Chinese context). They also label these unwanted comments as “alarmist” and “intentionally defamatory” in an official manner, trying to show that they are correct in violating consumers’ freedom of speech in China.

This is one of the reasons why more and more people are accessing English materials instead of waiting for translations on Chinese rose forums. The managers of several Chinese rose forums have been bought by this company, and their information is biased. Hahaha, this is very interesting.

Well, I digress. Returning to the topic, in the face of a complex and ever-changing yet charming natural environment, we cannot judge the quality of a variety based solely on its performance. There is a saying that goes, “a one-sided fact is a lie.” Perhaps we need to avoid stereotyping and oversimplifying the appearance of a variety, as mentioned in a book, “the environment is the real boss behind the scenes.” If a rose can find even one environment on Earth where it can grow healthily without pesticides, breeding is considered successful (this is almost impossible to fail). The rest depends on the breeders’ personalities, and there is no distinction between good or bad.

Wish you all the best~

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Darren, I agree. I have many highly rated cultivars in my garden that perform poorly in one way or another (for me). But on the other hand, I also have some supposed “dogs” which are much better (for me, again) than any reviewer would have rated them.

If you have access, Peter Schneider touches broadly on this subject in his book “Right Rose, Right Place”, and you may find it interesting.

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Thank you for your guidance,Lee.The perspectives and experiences in this book are truly suitable for providing the knowledge that I need right now. I have already read a part of it today, and I will also recommend this book to my friends around me in the future.

In the book, the author mentions the principle of “I will not talk about rose varieties that I have not grown myself”. When I read this, I felt that the author was sharing his genuine experience with great sincerity and hoping to help the readers.

Once again, thank you for your recommendation, and I wish you good luck always!

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