| Rose Books
Online |
| The Complete Flower Paintings and Drawings of Graham Stuart Thomas by Graham Stuart Thomas, 1987, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. / Sagapress, Inc., New York Rose drawings, paintings, and text from pages 104-149 |
'Dream Girl' pages 142,143 |
It has always been the ambition of rose hybridists to produce their dream-rose and in ‘Dream Girl’ Martin Jacobus of New Jersey came near to realising his ideal when he crossed ‘Dr W. van Fleet’ and ‘Señora Gari’, a Hybrid Tea. ‘Dream Girl’ was introduced to commerce by the famous firm of Bobbink and Atkins of New Jersey. At that time this firm led the way it the States with a delightful catalogue of the older roses. Lambertus C. Bobbink sent me this rose with very high recommendations, which it has upheld to the fall. It is a climbing rose—up to about ten feet, not more—with restrained almost bushy growth; it inherits the lovely glossy foliage of ’Dr. W. van Fleet’. The climbing roses of the. 1930s were mostly gawky sports of bush Hybrid Teas; however beautiful their flowers might be, they were usually out of reach! The flowers of ’Dream Girl’ are produced freely just after midsummer, and thereafter a continual though less spectacular display is given, gently nodding down at the beholder and fall of glorious fragrance. This was a triumph of breeding because the gawky Hybrid Teas would only produce a crop at midsummer and a smaller crop it September or early October. Just where ‘Dream Girl’ got its beautiful shape from remains to be explained; at times the full flowers are delightfully quartered like those of an old Gallica rose. It has always been my intention to try pruning this rose fairly hard for I believe it would make an excellent large shrub thereby. As one looks through the lists of rose-breeding of the last eighty years it is noticeable how often ‘Dr. W. van Fleet’ has been used as a parent. Its free-branching growth, lovely foliage, and gracious fragrant flowers are the compelling factors, which it many instances have been passed on. Dr. Walter van Fleet lived in Maryland and was the producer of ‘American Pillar’—another rose which, like his namesake, seems to bid well for several centenaries. The glossy leaves of ’Dream Girl’—and of ’Dr. W. van Fleet’ and ‘American Pillar’— derive from Rosa wichuraiana. Wa are so used to thinking of scentless roses like ‘Dorothy Perkins’ and ‘Excelsa’ when the name of wichuraiana crops up that we are apt to pass by this species with a mere nod of recognition. There it no doubt that this August-flowering species, a native of the coastal regions of Japan and of the Korean archipelago, has never been properly appreciated it Britain, despite having been known and grown since 1891. In the United States it is called the Memorial Rose from its frequent use it covering graves. It is nice to feel that at last, now that roses other than just bush, climbers, and ramblers are becoming appreciated, it will come into its own, foreshadowed as it were by some of its excellent hybrids such as ‘Dream Girl’ and ‘Albéric Barbier’. |
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last modified September 29,
2002