In my last post about the World’s Favorite Rose you’ll have noticed that I listed far more names than there were roses which had received the award. Almost every rose had two names, from this year’s winner Graham Thomas (‘Ausmas’) to the very first winner in 1976 - Peace (‘Madame A. Meilland’). And I mentioned this same issue in my final Hampton Court Flower Show post as well. Why does this happen?

Well, just think about one of the 2006 World’s Favorite Rose winners, the pink and white climber known in France as Pierre de Ronsard. It was named for one of France’s greatest poets, known in the 16th century France as “prince of poets”. But in modern America, where the French have not been universally held in high regard, and when first The Simpsons (1995) and then the conservative magazine The New Republic (late 1990s) characterized the French as “cheese eating surrender monkeys”- well, a rose with a French name didn’t have much chance of selling well, however good it was. So in The States this rose is sold as Eden or Eden Climber or sometimes Eden ’88 – with its original cultivar name, ‘Meiviolin’, always appended just to eliminate any possible confusion.

This started long ago. ‘Madame A. Meilland’ was all set to be introduced in France in 1939 but held back because of the war. In 1945 when it was released, it was sold around the world under the commemorative name of Peace. The practice of giving roses and other plants a cultivar name, often based on the breeder’s name – ‘Ausmas’ from David Austin or ‘Meiviolin’ from Meilland International – and then also giving the plant selling names for the different countries in which it’s sold is now much more common.

So the cultivar name for that rose sold in France as Pierre de Ronsard is ‘Meiviolin’ while in the USA and other English speaking countries it’s generally sold as Eden or Eden Climber or Eden ’88. The essential point is that whatever the name it’s sold under, the original cultivar name, ‘Meiviolin’, should always be used alongside. And, ideally, the type should be different: Eden (‘Meiviolin’).

As it happens, this is especially necessary with this rose, because Eden is a name that the good people at Meilland International have used before. Eden ‘Meiviolin’ was introduced in France in 1985. But back in 1950 they’d introduced a completely different rose, a deep pink Hybrid Tea, with the cultivar name ‘Eden Rose’. To add to the possible confusion, this sported to produce a climber called ‘Eden Rose, Climbing’. (Pictures of this are hard to find, so I’m showing the page from the very useful Cass’s Garden With Roses site. Click here for her larger image.)

I know you’re probably lost. The point is that the only sure way to guarantee that we all know exactly which roses we’re talking about is to go back to the original cultivar names: the two roses are ‘Eden Rose’ and Eden (‘Meiviolin’)

OK… back to something lighter next time!