The Future is Now

Let your eyes feast on these three beauties.

The trio is part of the future in gardening: they won't be on the market until the gardening season of 2010.

This is their story.

Think of them as you flip through the garden catalogs or scan through rows of containers at your favorite garden center. Knowing what goes into creating each garden plant, you will have a greater understanding of why the trade is called the nursery industry. You will have greater respect for the miracle of life which can be so reasonably purchased.

In what I used to think was my prime, I could barely keep track of two teenage boys and their father. Look at what Tom Carruth has to keep track of-

The fertilized seeds get planted in the " incubator" - and up pop these darling little babies.

Now- I see the table of these fairy sized plants holding up the head of a full sized rose- and I'm attached.

But Tom's must edit. Ruthlessly. For a decade. With detailed and scrupulous records. From conception to gaduation to market- when the individual rose is ready to be brought home for adulthood- Tom takes on the responsibility of being sure if a rose is going to fail- it is going to not do so in our gardens. He even exposes the roselings to horrid things- like mildew. If they aren't resistant- out they go.

When fortune is smiling, in about a decade, he and his team will have created a rose or so worthy to carry the "family name" of Weeks Roses. It is still too early to early to put names on the triplets at the top of the page. That has to wait until after the winners of the AARS field trials are named.

Until these are out on the market- you can view the "children" Tom has successfully raised at the Weeks Catalogue http://www.weeksroses.com/Weeks2009Cat.pdf

Tom Carruth, the man in charge of creating new beauties for Weeks Roses, regards himself as more artist than scientist. I say he's a genius. The world is fortunate to have people like him, dedicated to making the world more beautiful.

Thank you to photographer Gene Sasse for permission to feature his photography. The middle four are his.

And to Sue Maxwell- for allowing Maggie to remind us that today we vote- laying the path leading to our collective future.