"In New Zealand the best-loved may well be Alberic Barbier, a vigorous almost evergreen classic that will easily achieve 6 metres and can be seen decorating the roadsides around Wellington, where it seems to do particularly well. For years at Paekakariki there was a magnificent display of Alberic festooning a fence by the highway. Alas it is no more, but you can't keep a good rambler down and it will be back ! Alberic Barbier is a 1900 cross with an old tea rose, Shirley Hibberd and is characterised by dark foliage and soft butter-yellow buds that open to a muddled creamy white. Fragrance is often described as being of apples."
-- Lloyd Chapman, Trinity Farm, Otaki, New Zealand

"Discard a rose merely because it had gotten off to a bad start for some reason or other? Not coax it along so that it might finally have the chance to come into its own and cast a little glory around, as it was meant to do? This seems to me unfair and curiously incompatible with the philosophy of those who work with and understand the Good Earth. The capacity for patience, the considerable skill and knowledge that is part of the equipment of even the amateur rosarian make the gesture wholly incongruous. True, there comes a time when reluctantly one must discard, but let us not hurry to the point of ruthlessness."
---Grace Kemmerling, from "Preciousness Versus Appreciation"
American Rose Annual 1951