Rose Breeding

Have you ever wondered why some roses are bi-colored, speckled, more fragrant or less fragrant? It’s actually all purposefully created by a human being. There is a world of “breeders” out there that create different types of roses for farms to purchase. I was fortunate enough to meet one of the breeders while in Ecuador named Preesman (from Holland). They are actually the company that “creates” new varieties of roses each year for growers/farms to plant and sell to the public. The farms have the ability to decide which “breeds” they would like to plant at their farm and not all farms have the right to every breed. Some varieties of roses are exclusive to certain farms. At FloraCal they have a Greenhouse Showroom where they grow a few plants of each new variety to “test” them for breeders. Not all roses make it to the final stages of “wholesale”. They might grow well, might grow too small of heads, might not open perfectly, and might be too fragrant (which fragrant roses don’t travel/ship very well). There are so many variables to a rose and it’s impossible to say why some make and it some don’t. Although we as a consumer might find them to be beautiful the rose growers have their reasons for picking the variety of roses they choose to plant.
Carlos, the owner of Floral Cal & Flora Verdes breed a few of his own roses but a couple of his most popular are Latin Ambience, Pink Intuition and Bengala.