As the newly appointed President
of ARBA I would like to welcome you to our website.
The rose breeders of Australia are an enthusiastic
group often working in the quiet of their back yards
to produce the magnificent new roses that households
desire.
The objects of ARBA are:
-
To promote the knowledge, understanding and
appreciation of the breeding of roses.
-
To undertake any activity incidental to the breeding
and promotion of Australian bred roses.
I would encourage anyone who has an
interest in the development of new roses to become a
member of ARBA, whether you are yourself a breeder or
not.
You will receive The Rose Breeder,
an interesting quarterly newsletter with up to date
information on rose breeding activities in Australia.
You will also be notified of events and activities in
your state and across the country organised by members
of the association.
Australian Hybridised Rose Award of Honour – Hall of
Fame
At the 2012 ARBA AGM the first Australian
Hybridised Rose Award of Honour – Hall of Fame
winner was voted for by your delegates. It was agreed
that the first winner should be from Alister Clark of
Victoria in recognition of his position as Australia’s
most prominent and well known rose breeder.
It was difficult to go past “Lorraine Lee” as his most
well known and widely grown rose. Although not a perfect
rose by today’s standards and not necessarily his best
rose, it is a rose that is truly representative of
Alister Clark’s breeding in that era. Registered in
1924, it was one of the most popular roses from the 30’s
to 50’s and was well known overseas. Lorraine Lee
remains a household name amongst growers of roses in our
country and was the only variety I knew when I started
growing roses as my mother raved about its beauty and
strong growth since I was a kid growing up in SA. I
would encourage you to spend the next six months
thinking about your favourite Australian Hybridised rose
and to discuss it with your delegates as a possible
award winner for 2013.
New NRSA award for
the top Australian Bred Rose at the NRTGA
To support the work that Australian Rose Breeders have
been doing and to encourage the goal of creating higher
quality roses, the NRSA has created a new award of
assistance:
“That the NRSA will offer annually up to $1,000
assistance for the development, production, marketing
and sale of the top Australian Bred Rose in the annual
National Rose Trial Garden of Australia Awards,
providing that rose has achieved a Gold, Silver or
Bronze medal in the trial. How the money is to be
expended will be determined by the Breeder of the rose
in liaison with the rose introducer and will be
reimbursed on the basis of suitable evidence of costs.”
The vision I have for ARBA is that we create an
environment conducive to the sharing of ideas and source
materials between breeders. We are all amateurs looking
to create something beautiful, not to retire on our
earnings from our rose creations. By pooling our
resources we could create a truly outstanding Australian
rose to compete at the levels of those of the top
international professional breeders.
This
year 14 of the 53 roses entered in the NRTGA were
Australian Bred. The challenge we face is that in 2012
no rose met this criteria by meeting the 68% minimum
requirement for a medal. The standard is only achieved
on average every 3.5 years. Our mission then is to take
Australian Rose Breeding to a new level of excellence
previously unseen and be recognised on the World stage.
Good luck for the coming year of
hybridising.
Paul Hains (President)
