I have been breeding roses now for more than 20 years. Rose breeding, I feel, is more an art than a science. I feel an intense love of the beauty of the roses. Through years of trial and error with a lot of intuition and love I have combined the best of the English roses and many other forms of roses with special emphasis on fragrance, beauty and disease resistance. We grow about 10,000 seedlings each year, every one an individual. Then we select 1500 of the most promising seedling to be planted in the test field. Out of 10,000 only about 5 will be judged good enough to be named and introduced. We test them more strenously than other breeders as they are never sprayed for insects or disease or fertilized. My feeling in this method is that only the finest will show both disease-resistance and vigor.
I will share an example of this: The extremely disease-resistant variety 'Morning Has Broken' growing in the test field with a rose bush next to it with blackspot so badly its leaves were nearly black, not green. The leaves of the two plants were intermingled but 'Morning Has Broken' did not show a sign of black spot through the entire summer and I have never seen mildew on it. My goal is to breed beautiful, fragrant roses in a wide range of colors in both the style of the English roses and also to expand the range and quality of the shrub roses. Rose breeding has been my love and passion for one third of my life. I hope that I will continue, with God's help, to create beautiful roses for you to enjoy for years to come. I thank you, our customers, for permitting me to follow my dreams. May you all have beautiful rose gardens to enjoy and add a measure of peace and joy to this hectic and uncertain world that we live in today.
JOHN CLEMENTS
