I find this an interesting and creative (although terribly misleading) piece of advertising. The 5 million dollar rose? Oh, puuulleeeaasseee. Am I missing something? Did David Austin use rose seeds he got from the moon?
Judith,
I didn’t know what you meant, so I googled:
“The 5-million-dollar rose.The Juliet Rose. . David Austin,rose breeder,spent 3M pounds & 15yrs to create this hybrid. #roses”
https://plus.google.com/+Talkaboutroses-acloserlook/posts/fU54WMKkAxE
So, someone guessed, quite wildly, that Austin accomplished nothing else in those 15 years. Every pound and every day was devoted to a single line of breeding that culminated in ‘Juliet’.
Karl
Even funnier, Trivia Hive picked this up and taking the ad campaign quite literally, Sweet Juliet was their answer to something that went like this…What flower is/was the most expensive ever, in history? and I wrote to them that I could buy this rose for $27.95 almost any day of the week, when they were comparing it to the tulip mania, rare and endangered orchids, saffron crocus, etc. . However they buzzed me “Incorrect” regardless.
That’s a good one, alright.
I am reminded of a rose that was distributed by Lakeland Nurseries back in the 1970s as “Scarlet Showers”.
“This is the wonder rose that Rev. Bunge has finally perfected and patented after 32 years of breeding.”
In fact, it was a climbing sport of ‘Paul Neyron’, officially named ‘Ray Bunge’.
Karl