Sign up for our daily Newsletter and stay up to date with all the latest news!

Subscribe I am already a subscriber

You are using software which is blocking our advertisements (adblocker).

As we provide the news for free, we are relying on revenues from our banners. So please disable your adblocker and reload the page to continue using this site.
Thanks!

Click here for a guide on disabling your adblocker.

Sign up for our daily Newsletter and stay up to date with all the latest news!

Subscribe I am already a subscriber

New Zealand: Rose breeder turns hobby into business

Rob Somerfield has been "tinkering" with roses since 1983, and in 1998 turned his hobby into a business on the back of his first commercial release, 'Blackberry Nip', which that year won the highest award for an amateur breeder at the national rose trials in Palmerston North.

"It's hard being a nobody and trying to release a rose," he says. "If I hadn't had 'Blackberry Nip' and a follow-up, 'Kaimai Sunset', I may not have made it. It's almost unheard of that a breeder's first rose is a big success."

Since then, his Glenavon Roses, based at Te Puna near Tauranga, has won the trial's top award six times, footing it with names such as Harkness (UK), Dickson (Northern Ireland), Delbard (France) and Carruth (US).

For me the most important thing in a rose is health, and everything else comes after that, with colour almost unimportant because it's so subjective. But I made the mistake of not liking the colour and almost lost a great little plant."

Rose growers might pity Somerfield for locating his business in Tauranga, but he reckons the hot, humid (and sometimes very wet) summers give him an advantage.

"Anything that is healthy here will do well anywhere. Many gardeners aren't prepared to stake and spray roses so field trials outside allow me to assess all parts of the plant."

Read more at Stuff.co.nz
Publication date: