Monday, July 05, 2010



My friend John Tuytle, a member of the Vancouver Rose Society, sheep farmer and rose breeder died May 2 of this year.

In May of 2009 he gave me a rose. “Alex, this is a hybrid tea rose you should have ( I don’t like hybrid teas!). It is called Crimson Glory (Kordes, 1935).” I left it in John’s pot and in June it bloomed. The flowers were extremely fragrant and the colour was a deep crimson red. I liked the plant but I did not put it into the ground. This year I had a pot with the tag R. ‘Crimson Glory” on it and the rose that was growing from it looked like a root stock type of rose. The leaves were different and I knew it was unlikely to be John’s rose as he never grew roses that were not only from their own roots. I felt sad about it.

Now last year the city paved our back lane but they were pleasant about leaving our back lane garden. One day I arrived in the afternoon to find that the folks from the city had gently removed my lane roses so that their paver would not damage them. They had no idea that roses cannot really be removed from the ground during anytime but late fall or very early spring. I quickly put them into pots (as far as I know there were two of them). This spring I put them back in the back lane. They seemed to be in good shape. They are in flower now. One is the moss rose William Lobb and the other is another moss, Chapeau de Napoleón.



It was a couple of weeks ago that Rebecca noticed a third rose growing underneath Napoleon’s Hat. It featured very dark and very fragrant blooms. It was Tuytle’s Crimson Glory. How it got there I will never know. Perhaps I put it there and I had forgotten. Today I cut some of the flowers which in their dryness were somehow pleading for a generous watering. Nonetheless the blooms are handsome as they are.

While John Tuytle was alive when he gave me this rose, I do believe that Crimson Glory is a posthumous gift, in a way. Wherever he might be, I thank him.


John Tuytle's Stamp

John Tuytle

John Tuytle's Eryngiums

Rebecca & Lauren visit

Ramona?

R. Pierre Oger

Lauren and Rebecca