Well, thank you! I’ve never thought of it as ‘mentoring’. The value in my upbringing has always been knowledge is worthless unless widely distributed. The only real “power” is in what you can give to others freely. I’ve never been able to write anything of any value unless I had unanswered questions, for which no suitable answers were available and I had to research and study to find them out. Once discovered, I had to share them with anyone interested. I believe that is one reason Ralph and I hit it off as we did. That, and I teased him, treated him as a “playmate”. Carolyn told me that was the way he felt toward me, too. He freely shared. Passing any information I gleaned from him on to others who are interested is what I MUST do, otherwise I’m “hiding that light under a bushel”. Unless knowledge helps someone, of what value is it? Also, the best way to remember something is to repeat it.
Several rose authors have stated everyone stands on the shoulders of someone else to reach higher. Elevating everyone improves the chances, and FUN, for all of us. Forums such as this teach us all. I certainly don’t know everything, never will, but your proposing a thought stimulates other “what if’s” in me and helps loosen memories of information provided me, and our combined thoughts stimulate everyone else so we all distill more, learn more, elevate each other dynamically. That is FUN and what learning should be. So, we ‘mentor’ each other. In doing so, we provide Ralph and all who have preceded us a larger dose of immortality. I know his greatest fear was his lifetime of learning, discovery and inherited knowledge would die with him. This, and we, prevent that. I am thrilled both Robert and Paul are here to help jog my memory and help me keep facts straight. Three heads ARE better than one, particularly when it has holes in it!
We’re all interested in all the facets of breeding within this marvelous genus. None of us can take every road, search every species, investigate every direction. Collectively, we can LEARN about many of them while digging our own information from the species and cultivars we’ve found interesting to us. I will likely never have need of roses hardy to zone 5 or lower, but it sure is interesting hearing how some others of you are creating them! Thank YOU!
The comment above about being able to dig yellows out of a cross stimulated the memory of Ralph’s statement that to “stabilize purples, cross them with a solid yellow” If you use a “stained yellow”, one which shows red in the flower parts, or strong red tones to the new growth, you’re likely to get stained lavenders like Angel Farts, Paradise, etc. Keeping the yellow “pure”, all plant pigments as free from red as possible, reinforces and stabilizes the purple tones and keeps them from blushing or burning red. FWIW.
