New book describes relationship between roses and Denmark

Everything has a past, the rose too. In a book that has been published this week, Danish author Torben Thim looks back at the history of the rose and he has defined the multifaceted roles of Denmark. In this book that is titled "The History of the Rose in Denmark" he describes the relationship between roses and Denmark in 320 pages of text and pictures. On top of the factual history, there are personal stories from his life and those of Danish rose breeders. "All is written down in a charming manner with anecdotal stories to please both connoisseur and novice alike", says Dr. Tommy Cairns, an internationally renowned rose expert and exhibitor, in the foreword of the book.

The cover of the book.

One of the breeders highlighted in the book is Roses Forever. Thim visited the owners Rosa and her husband Harley Eskelund to learn more about the couple and their business. "If you could hybridize a philosopher and a rose, I'm sure the result would be a creature with features that characterizes Rosa and Harley's partnership." Thims describes that Rosa is the creative mind that thinks, wishes and experiences, while Harley is the archive of all the information, notes and images.

He also learns more about the person behind the breeder, and Rosa and Harley tell him more about their passion, the decision to go into business together and keeping up creativity. This all is described in a 14 paged chapter, click here to read a part of the chapter.

Rosa and Harley Eskelund.

Towards the end of the chapter, Thim goes in depth why Rosa and Harley started with the production of miniature roses and how professionally breeding of miniature roses followed afterwards. Rosa tells that Harley and she looked after the greenhouse of Svend Jensen (Danrose) for five years, and decided to buy their own nursery in 1988. They bought the young plants and materials from Svend Jensen. And he was the one who suggested Rosa to start breeding miniature roses professionally. "Svend had bred many roses under some rather primitive conditions and had his breeds tested in the United States. Then Svend suddenly says: Rosa, I want you to start hybridizing! We’d already started, but Svend gave us that extra push. It went well, really well."

And after breeding miniature roses, Rosa started breeding cut roses and garden roses followed. In this chapter, also the breeding and Rosa's passion of these type of roses is highlighted. "Rosa is a breeder and the whole world is her garden", explains Thim. He describes that her garden contains many different plants, including her own garden roses which she started breeding around the turn of the millennium. She tests them in her own garden, where next to the different weather conditions, dogs dig holes in the bed, kids kick balls into the rose bed and branches are broken. "All the things that make rose cultivation so exciting and attractive."

Also for the breeding of garden roses Thim praises Rosa and Harley for what they achieved. "Given that ‘only’ twelve years have elapsed since Rosa and Harley started to breed garden roses seriously, they are well on their way with gold medals and prizes for fragrance."

Eager to read the entire chapter and book? It can be ordered via info@torbenthim.dk