TEA ROSES 
T 
A 
THOMASVILLE 
Sy Sam C. Hjorwt 
Georgia Rose Society Bulletin 
June, 1948 
(Reprinted by permission) 
In the backyard garden of Misses Annie and Ju‘ia 
Wright, on Fletcher Street in Thomasville, is an old 
pink Tea rose planted by the grandmother of these 
ladies 86 years ago. Nobody knows the name of the 
rose, which ts a little lighter and larger than Bon Silene. 
This old bush blooms every year and from it other 
plants, some of them more than 25 years of age, have 
been propagated. There are other old Teas in and 
around Thomasville, several of them almost half a 
century old, some about 30 years, of such varieties as 
Mme. Lombard, Duchesse de Brabant, Safrano and 
William R. Smith. It is such roses as these that show 
that ours is a Tea rose climate. 
It was in 1898 that my father started the nursery 
business in Thomasville with which I grew up. I recall 
as a youngster about 40 years ago that the nursery at 
: that time was mostly a rose business, and there were 
MARIE VAN HOUTTE varieties that seem lost to commerce now, such as 
Catherine Mermet, Christine de Noue, Mme. Demaizin, 
Princesse de Sagan and others. For 20 years that fine 
ale sl ee rose Mme. Lombard outsold all other varieties, and it is still greatly prized in the gardens of this 
ocality. 

Tea roses were brought to Europe from China’s gardens in the Iate 1700’s. In Northern Europe they 
were not well received, but in Southern France they found conditions of climate and soil suitable and rapidly 
gained favor. It is believed these Tea roses from China are of an ancestry combining the single species rose 
Gigantea, native to Southern China and Burma, with the common China rose. 
The customary hard pruning of roses is often fatal to Teas. It is absolutely necessary for Teas to be 
allowed to grow to a respectable size for best performance, perhaps because the climbing rose Gigantea Is a 
dominant influence in the character of these roses. 
To use the well-chosen words of Mr. Roy Hennessey in his most commonsense book, Hennessey on 
Roses: ““Tea roses are exceptionally lovely in appearance, most of them with slender, graceful buds and 
high-centered opening blooms. The hues are of delicate creams, ivories, pinks, pale yellows, soft oranges, 
rose colors and perhaps blending of many of these shades in one blossom. There are no true bright reds 
and no brilliant yellows. Tea rose growth is usually markedly graceful, rather airy and spreading in habit, 
with wood usually reddish but occasionally soft clear green. ‘Thorns are few and widely spaced, with an 
absence of pubescent thorns. The foliage is smooth, not glaucous, and never brilliantly burnished.” 
Most Teas are not considered cut-flower varieties, but some produce large, double flowers on stiff stems, 
the best varieties being William R. Smith, Baroness Henriette Snoy, Maman Cochet (pink), White Maman 
Cochet and Mme. Lombard. A lot of the others are much better than generally believed. A vase of the large- 
flowered Mrs. Dudley Cross ts lovely; first the color is canary-yellow, tinged pink, then gradually all petals 
become suffused with pink, after the manner of the Hybrid Tea, Talisman. Actually when one begins using 
Teas, the experience is a fascinating one. 
I have indicated that the beginning of our nursery was in the growing of Tea roses. After some 20 years 
Hybrid Teas came to be played up everywhere, and the planting of Teas was almost abandoned. Now, these 
Old-Fashioned roses, so well adapted to the Lower South, are rapidly coming back mto favor, and we are 
diligently seeking not so much to take in all that is ‘‘new’” in roses, but to search out and bring back into 
production more of the fine old roses of yesterday. Along with this work in the field of Teas, we are again 
growing and offering Climbing Teas and Noisettes, and some old favorite Hybrid Perpetuals. So much of 
the ‘‘new”’ has little value for the Lower South; so much of the old has genuine worth and merit. 
Home Gardening for the South 
is the name of a delightful and helpful monthly magazine. We have no financial interest in it and receive 
no commissions. We heartily endorse it as a publication for garden lovers of the Gulf and Coastal section. 
Annual subscription $2.00. Remit to: Home Gardening for the South, 814 St. Louis St., New Orleans 16, La. 
THOMASVILLE, GEORGIA 27 
