A winning way with roses
TO be successful in the world of racehorse breeding, it was said, tongue in cheek admittedly, that you should breed the best to the best — and hope for the best.
It is a similar story in the rarified circles of rose hybridising, where the chances of creating a champion bloom simply by crossing two great roses are just as uncertain.
Indeed, Sam McGredy, who bred a lengthy list of awardwinning roses in a 50year career, once calculated the odds at eight million to one.
Yet the records show that the amiable Irishborn New Zealand rosarian regularly beat those odds by creating some of the world’s most popular — and eyecatching — roses.
Mr McGredy, who died in Auckland on August 25, aged 87, is understood to have bred and commercially released more than 270 roses between 1958 and 2007, including the iconic ‘‘Dublin Bay’’ and other garden favourites like ‘‘Aotearoa’’, ‘‘Sexy Rexy’’, ‘‘Paddy Stephens’’, ‘‘Olympiad’’, ‘‘Handel’’, ‘‘Solitaire’’ and ‘‘Kronenbourg’’, to mention just a handful of his superstars.
Just as importantly, perhaps, is his legacy as a rosebreeding innovator. It can be fairly claimed Mr McGredy changed the way his fellow hybridisers worldwide approached their specialised craft.
As the late Jack Harkness, successful English breeder and writer noted, Mr McGredy had ‘‘the breeder’s eye to see possibilities which others had not dreamed of and the imagination to uncover the way to them, through generations and disappointments’’.
And in all this, New Zealand was the greatest benefactor of Mr McGredy’s talent and success, after he decided, in 1972, to shift his young family and his rosebreeding operation away from strifetorn Northern Ireland.
That lifechanging decision followed two trips to New Zealand, including Dunedin, in the early 1960s where, he said, he fell in love with ‘‘the gentle countryside, the Irish greenness of the landscape and the charm of the people’’.
Emigrating was not just about escaping the murderous politics of his homeland.
Mr McGredy reasoned the climate here was ideal for rose-growing and once he settled in Auckland, he set about invigorating his career with typical energy and enthusiasm.
‘‘Regensberg’’, released in 1979, was the first rose he bred and raised in New Zealand. Then followed roses of all colours, shapes and sizes; big, colourful Hybrid Tea and Floribunda roses like ‘‘Auckland Metro’’, ‘‘Matawhero Magic’’, ‘‘Spek’s Centennial’’, ‘‘Waikato’’, ‘‘Nobilo’s Chardonnay’’, ‘‘Aloha’’, ‘‘Heart of Gold’’, ‘‘Benson and Hedges Gold’’, ‘‘City of Auckland’’, ‘‘Super Bowl’’ and ‘‘Old Port’’.
There were miniatures and patio roses, too: the New Zealand place name series including ‘‘Manapouri’’, ‘‘Wanaka’’, ‘‘Kaikoura’’ and ‘‘Otago’’ — the bright stripes of ‘‘Michaelangelo’’, ‘‘Oranges and Lemons’’, ‘‘Hurdy Gurdy’’ and ‘‘Pandemonium’’, the landscape roses like ‘‘Trumpeter’’ and ‘‘Snow Carpet’’ and the novel ‘‘handpainted’’ series that included ‘‘Picasso’’, ‘‘Matangi’’, ‘‘Old Master’’, ‘‘Eyepaint’’ and ‘‘Rock’n Roll’’.
Indeed, if a poll of gardeners was undertaken, asking them to name the most popular or wellknown roses grown in New Zealand gardens, there is every chance many of the selections would have one thing in common: they were all bred by Mr McGredy.
His impact on the rose world was, arguably, without comparison in modern times, save for perhaps the late David Austin, who died in December last year.
Also among his New Zealand legacies are the everpopular ‘‘Rose Ranfurly’’ events held in both the North and South Island each year. These were instituted by Mr McGredy back in 1977 as a way for rose societies to compete with each other, on a friendly challenge basis, for a Ranfurly Shield, as already well established in domestic rugby circles. This also reflected his keen interest in rugby.
His energies were not confined to the breeding sheds in his Henderson glasshouses. Before coming to New Zealand, Mr McGredy had been a vigorous campaigner for obtaining plant breeders’ rights for rose hybridisers, ensuring they would get a financial return on their investments. The United Kingdom introduced a law to this effect in 1964.
There was similar success in New Zealand when Mr McGredy lobbied hard for the introduction of the NZ Plant Varieties Act in 1973. He was also behind the establishment of the Rose Introducers of New Zealand group, designed to promote and introduce new varieties and license producers to grow and collect royalties.
As he said, while people might think his profession was a wonderful thing to be doing, ‘‘I really did breed roses to make money’’.
With the financial success came acclaim and recognition around the world.
According to research by Franklin Rose Society president Doug Grant, Mr McGredy received numerous awards including 15 gold medals from the Royal National Rose Society (the first in 1959), the Queen Mary Commemorative Medal (twice), multiple All American Rose Selections, 14 Gold Stars of the South Pacific at the Palmerston North rose trials, gold awards at the Belfast rose trials, the Gold Medal of the Royal Irish Horticultural Society, the Golden Rose of The Hague in Holland, and the Dean Hole Medal by the Royal National Rose Society in 1983.
He was also awarded a CBE in 1994 for services to horticulture.
❛ Both New Zealand and the rose world have lost a great man and I have lost a great friend and mentor
Born in January 1932, Mr McGredy was the fourth generation of a famous Irish nursery and rosebreeding family business begun in 1880 by the first Sam McGredy in Portadown, County Armagh.
Sam McGredy III died suddenly in 1934, aged just 38, when his son (Sam IV) was only 2. The family business was taken over by Walter Johnson, Sam’s uncle. It was not until 1952 that Sam, having toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist, decided instead to follow the family vocation and begin rose breeding.
‘‘I didn’t have a clue’’, he told an interviewer many years later.
But rather than rely on the breeding programme already established by previous generations of McGredys, he branched out into new bloodlines, having earlier sought advice from some of the great rose breeders in Europe and the United States.
His first commercial release was ‘‘Salute’’ in 1958. This was followed by award winners ‘‘Orangeade’’, ‘‘Chantelle’’, ‘‘Piccadilly’’, ‘‘Mischief’’, ‘‘Paddy McGredy’’ and ‘‘Elizabeth of Glamis’’, the latter named for the Queen Mother in 1964.
Mr McGredy was also a published author, with at least three books to his credit.
In Look to the Rose (1981), he described rosebreeding as ‘‘an odd kind of occupation’’, saying it was ‘‘the work of one pair of eyes’’.
‘‘It’s not for those who like team games. It’s for loners. Trying to breed roses by committee, or even select them by consensus, is rather like standing around Picasso, telling him what to paint, and then having a vote as to whether one likes the painting or not.’’
Mr McGredy touched the lives of numerous people through his rose breeding and promotional activities, inspiring people like leading New Zealand breeder Rob Somerfield.
He said of his mentor: ‘‘Most people knew Sam as a loud, funloving gentleman with an Irish accent. But I was lucky enough to get to know him beyond that. He always showed a genuine interest in what I was up to and was always keen to share his wisdom.
‘‘Sam undoubtedly shaped me into the rose breeder I am today and I can’t thank him enough for that. We are so lucky that he decided to make New Zealand his home in 1972. Both New Zealand and the rose world have lost a great man and I have lost a great friend and mentor.’’
Dr Samuel Darragh McGredy is survived by his wife, Jillian, three daughters Kathryn, Maria and Clodagh (from an earlier marriage to Maureen McCall) and his grandchildren.