Fonds NRC - National Rose Collection [also known as National Rose Species Collection]

Extent: 4 boxes

Material relating to the National Rose Species Collection including correspondence, minutes, reports, an indexed catalogue and notebooks, 1948-1961 and the Keeper of the Rose Collection, Gordon Rowley including correspondence, publications

Admin History: In 1945 the Agricultural Improvement Council forms a scheme to establish national collections of shrubs, roses, and bulbs. The aim is to make the collections as complete as possible at each centre so that they will be ‘unique and of international interest’. Collections are formed at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Dianthus); Cambridge University Botanic Garden (Tulipa; Narcissus); the Royal Horticultural Society, Wisley (Dahlia and Chrysanthemum); and the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (Narcissus). The John Innes Horticultural Institution is selected as the centre for roses with the brief to co-ordinate research on practical problems of interest to rose breeders and growers. The nucleus of a ‘National Rose Species Collection’ is assembled at the John Innes Horticultural Institution in Merton, Surrey, shortly before the move to Bayfordbury in Hertfordshire in 1949. To look after the collection the JIHI receives £300 a year for a whole-time foreman-gardener and £50 a year for ‘incidental expenses’. This is the largest grant awarded under the scheme. From 1948-1961 the Institution employs Gordon D. Rowley as ‘Keeper of the Rose Collection’. About five acres of the heavier land adjoining the mansion at Bayfordbury is set aside for the collection which begins with the wild species already existing in botanic gardens. One of Rowley’s first tasks is to rename the plants in public collections that were disorganized by war. C. D. Darlington sees the rose collection as an opportunity for a long-term model experiment in the classification of a genus. Chromosome studies are an indispensable tool in the new systematics, which includes the study of geographical distribution, comparative morphology and breeding relationships. For growers the JIHI promises new methods of raising new stocks and new varieties, of improving germination, and producing polyploids. Over the next ten years JI will use chromosome studies to assist breeders in planning crosses, test techniques to speed germination and make field trials of different rootstocks. In 1953, after a study of rose stock trials in France, Gordon Rowley assembles a collection of 31 of the most popular rose stocks for experiments on methods of propagation, compatibility problems, and field trials on different soil types. Trials demonstrate that the choice of stock greatly influences plant size, the number of flowers produced, and the extent to which suckering occurs. Other rose breeding work reveals that rose cuttings can be made more successfully with rooting hormones, and that the germination of seeds of the dog rose used for understocks can be made more certain by artificial cold treatment.