'Madhatter' and 'G'Day' The Same Rose? In 1983, Mom made the decision to establish her first foreign agent. When she was on a visit to Australia, she met and became friends with an Australian couple, the Hayes. They came to America is 1984, and Mom helped them to collect cuttings of her roses...including several test roses. I remember that shoebox size package full of cuttings. It was wrapped in birthday paper and then in brown paper with a label that claimed the contents of that box was a doll. The Hayes were lying in order to avoid any quarantine of the plant cuttings. That illegal method of transporting the cuttings was the first thing that made me concerned about Mom's new agents. Among those test roses that were taken to Australia by the Hayes was the mini rose that Mom registered in 1986 as 'Madhatter'. Happily, Mom never lived long enough to learn of the Hayes' betrayal of her trust and the fate of that rose. Shortly after Mom passed away, I received a tape recording from the Hayes that told me what they had done with Mom's plants. The Hayes nursery went out of business, after only a year. In the meantime and without permission from Mom or myself, they had turned over all of Mom's roses (including the tests) to another Australian nurseryman...a man who was not under contract with Tiny Petals and felt no compulsion to consult with us or to establish any contract with us. In 1988, I found out that the rose named 'Madhatter' had been re-registered in Australia, under a new name...'G'Day'. It is illegal to register any rose (in any country), if you are not the hybridizer of that rose or the agent for the hybridizer. The registration paperwork for 'G'Day' did not have any legal authorization from anyone at Tiny Petals. Surprisingly, the paperwork did acknowledge that the rose had previously been registered in America as 'Madhatter' and was Mom's creation. I have to believe that the Hayes made this illegal registration possible, though they were no longer in business or our agents for Mom's roses in Australia. I never heard another word from the Hayes or their nurseryman friend who took possession of Mom's plants, but I do know that we never authorized all of Mom's roses, which were released in Australia from 1984 to the present time. They became part of the huge black market of minis in Australia. This was the beginning my mistrust for foreign agents and the main reason that I refused to authorize an agent in Europe. Not surprisingly, I had similar problems with the only other 2 foreign agents of Mom's roses. As for the rose, 'Madhatter', it is a true mini size rose in rich yellow. It is a cross of 'Autumn' (an orange blend hybrid tea) and 'Avandel' (a yellow blend mini). The semi-double flowers open into a dahlia-like bloom with petals that reflex back against the peduncle without quilling. The effect is wonderful. It makes a low growing plant and produces one-to-a-stem flowers. The plant is healthy and is a great rose for a low border or container. 'Madhatter' The Lost Rose? This is very bad news about the rose, named 'Madhatter'. The last time Tiny Petals had a plant of this rose; it was part of a collection of more than 100 plants of Mom's varieties. Dick and I personally delivered those precious plants to a representative of a public garden in Northern California, while we were doing a road trip in that area. The organizers of the project had set aside a large area to display one of every Dee Bennett variety in that special garden. For that reason only, we offered up the last 4" potted plant of 'Madhatter' for this special project. A month later, we were told that all of the plants in that shipment had mysteriously died...including several 'one of a kind' specimens. To make matters worse, the mother plant of 'Madhatter' was either lost or mistakenly sold, while Dick and I were on that same road trip. 'Madhatter' became officially extinct on that day. 'IRRESISTIBLE' AS SIMPLE AS A B C (This was the cover shot of 'Irresistible', when it was announced as the top mini show rose for 1990.) It was the summer of 1989 at the Del Mar Fair that someone mentioned a very interesting fact. There was a Dee Bennett rose for almost every letter of the alphabet...from 'Ada Perry' to 'Zelda Lloyd'. The thought suddenly crossed my mind, "Did any other hybridizer have a variety for EVERY LETTER of the alphabet?" There was only one way to find out...start with a hard letter, like 'X' and see who created those roses; then, confirm that they didn't have roses named with the other letters. Sure enough! Modern Roses 8 showed that there was only one 'X' rose...'Xavier', and that its hybridizer didn't have any 'Y' or 'Z' roses. Nobody had ever done the alphabet, but Mom was really close. She had only 8 letters missing...I, K, N, O, Q, U, W and that nasty X. I immediately began thinking about possible rose names, using those letters; but I didn't feel any pressure. After all, it would be another year, before I could be registering any rose to fill in the alphabet. This year's registrations had already been sent into the ARS. When I got the phone call in late July, informing me that the registration for Mom's new white mini had been declined, I found myself with an unnamed rose that needed a name 'real fast'. The ARS needed the new registration immediately, if the rose was to be included in the ARS Rose Magazine in December. It could take 2 to 3 months to clear the registration committee. That's when I remembered the Dee Bennett alphabet again. Mom's potential rose name book didn't have any 'I' name, so I reached for my dictionary. There was a long listing of 'Im...this' and 'In...that'. I considered 'Incredible', but that just wasn't quite right. Then, I saw the word 'Irresistible'...the perfect name for this great white mini. Now, you can see that naming 'Irresistible' really was...as simple as A B C. 'Irresistible' was introduced in 1990 and immediately became a 'killer show mini', winning so many awards that it did something quite unthinkable at the time. I remember getting the phone call from a nurseryman and friend, who said, "Well, it's about time. 'Jean Kenneally' finally got beat." Then, he hesitated and added, "D*mn it, Sue! When is Tiny Petals going to give up that title?" I was confused, until he told me that 'Irresistible' had replaced Mom's 'Jean Kenneally' as #1 show mini on the annual ARS list of show results. It took another Dee Bennett champion to unseat the Queen Machine...'Jean Kenneally', after its unbelievable 8 year reign. Remarkable 'Irresistible' does not come from a cross of any white rose. The seed parent was a pink floribunda, named 'Tiki'; and the pollen parent was Mom's burgundy colored mini, 'Brian Lee'. The plant grows rapidly to a height of 24 to 36 inches high. The long stemmed blooms last for days, when cut, and for weeks on the bush. I know of one case, where an 'Irresistible' bloom won Queen of Show; and the same bloom was exhibited a week later, nearly winning Mini Queen again. 'Irresistible' is a white mini, but is does have some color variations, depending on the climate and growing conditions. Some plants of this variety may make blooms that display inner petals of pale pink to peach or even slightly yellow. The outer rows of petals may even be pale green. Again, this is not uncommon; and most judges recognize these variations in this gorgeous rose. (Added comment) Almost One of the 'UP Sisters' In 1990, I tried but failed to introduce another 'Up' rose, to follow 'Pucker Up' and 'Cheer Up'. I registered one of Mom's one best mini tests with the ARS, using the name 'Pick Me Up'. I thought that it was such a positive name for a great rose. Unfortunately, another rose was already registered with that name; and it was still commercially available. In July, the ARS informed me that I could not have the old 'Pick Me Up' declared extinct. I had to come up with another name...fast. The deadline for the new rose introduction issue of the ARS Rose Magazine was coming up in September. In the meantime, an eager nurseryman (under contract with Tiny Petals) had been growing and propagating plants of this test rose for about 6 months and got a bit too anxious to sell the great new mini. He decided to jump the gun. The nurseryman knew that I had been planning to name the new rose 'Pick Me Up'; so, he put out his spring catalog in August (Way too early!!!) with a photo and description of Tiny Petals' new variety, 'Pick Me Up'. That was 6 months ahead of our scheduled date of release for the test. This was a VERY STUPID MISTAKE ON HIS PART. I was shocked and incredibly angry, when he called me to get a rush order for name tags of 'Pick Me Up'. It seems that he had already received some mail order requests for the new rose. Let's just put this into perspective. No contracted nursery person is supposed to sell test roses, which have not been registered or introduced by the originating nursery. IT JUST ISN'T DONE! This is a serious breach of contract and trust with the hybridizer/originating nursery who gave them test plants in advance of the scheduled introduction date. The hybridizer/nursery owner of a new variety ALWAYS makes the introduction of their new rose and also establish 'the first day for sale'. This man tried to grab the glory of being the first person to announce and sell Mom's great new mini. He was offering this rose for sale, before it was even shown and named in the new rose issue of ARS Rose Magazine. Talk about nerve!!! This guy was on my very last one. I was truly pissed; and it gave me only slight pleasure to let him know that his catalog had listed the 'wrong name' and his photo of our test rose really sucked. I threatened to cancel his contract with TPN, if he sold "or even gave away" one plant of that test rose, before the TPN release date in January. I purposely didn't send his shipment of nametags, until mid-February (2 months after all the other contracted nurseries got their tags), just to make my point with this eager beaver. Fearful that I might still cancel his contract to propagate Mom's roses, the gung-ho nurseryman did not dare to ask me about his 'rush' tag order. *lol* He learned the hard way...Don't mess with TPN or my Mom's roses. It was more than a year, before he could correct his catalog to reflect the real name of the rose. By the way, that test rose was finally registered as 'Irresistible'. Wouldn't she have made a great 'Up Sister'? 'Fair Dinkum' A Link To Mom's Past Most rose folks know that Mom was born in Australia. Though she was in her 20's, when she came to America as a war bride, she never totally lost her aussie accent. She also retained some of the wonderful Aussie slang. Some of these Aussie expressions meant nothing to me, until I actually visited Australia in 1996. That's when I got to hear them used daily by my uncles, aunts and cousins. 'Fair dinkum' was one of the commonly used Auss-isms that I encountered. I soon discovered that it had multiple meanings/translations. 'Fair dinkum' is often used as a question...as in "Fair dinkum?" which translates, "Is that the truth?" or "Are you kidding?" It can also be the answer to that same question...as "Fair dinkum!" or "Yep, it's the truth!" or "It's real!" Probably the most common use of the phrase would be as a positive comment to something. An Aussie would say, "That's fair dinkum!", which is the same as "That's great!" So, you could conceivably have a conversation with an Aussie that went something like this...(with translations in blue)... "I hear that you won the lottery. Fair dinkum?" "I hear that you won the lottery. Is that the truth?" "Fair dinkum!" "Yep. It's the truth!" "Fair dinkum!" "That's great!" I believe that Mom chose the positive meaning of the phrase, when she named one of her minis 'Fair Dinkum' in 1982. She obviously thought that it was 'great'. At least, I think that is fair dinkum. Fair dinkum? As for the rose, it is a quite a unique mini. It is a cross of an unknown (aka un-named) seedling and the orange-pink mini 'Coral Treasure'. The blooms are the palest shade of pink to almost white with a blush of deeper pink. The bush gets about knee high and makes loads of long stemmed blooms and small sprays. It is a very disease resistant rose that is nearly thorn less. It doesn't have fragrance, but it has one extremely wonderful characteristic. 'Fair Dinkum' will grow in shady locations, with as little as 2 hours of sunlight per day. I had the mother plant growing in my front yard in full sun, and it made plenty of beautiful blooms, like this... 'Del Mar Fair' The Big Show & A Rare Floribunda Mom opened Tiny Petals Nursery in April of 1972. She signed up to sell roses at the local fair immediately. Everyone in San Diego County knows that the Del Mar Fair is the biggest event of the year. It was a great way to let thousands of people know about the new business. The Del Mar Fair has everything from commercial displays to livestock, carnival rides to craft and art shows; but the fair is most famous for its garden and flower shows. Many folks come from hundreds of miles away, just to see those spectacular gardens. Tiny Petals' first booth at the fair wasn't much, just a 20 foot long, rectangular, box-like building at the back gate to the fair gardens. Mom started with a cash box and a small collection of mini roses which she bought wholesale from Ralph Moore. Even from that humble beginning, she made a profit; and that was the start of our 31 years of participation at the fair. Mom used to bring a couple of hundred, blooming plants to the fair each day and put each plant into its very own small, plastic bag. Then, the plants were arranged like miniature table arrangements on top of pale green table clothes. By the time that I took over Tiny Petals, the fair profit was now 1/3 of the nursery's income for the year. Our booth was more than twice the size of Mom's original 'shed', and the plants were all being propagated by TPN. Thousands of plants were sold, and varieties were displayed on flats, with and without blooms. Mom thought that customers would not want to handle the 'dirty, little pots' and insisted on having blooming plants. "Customers won't buy a plant, if they can't see the bloom." she would tell me. I discovered that our customers loved to dig through those 'dirty, little pots', looking for the best plant, with the best roots, and the most stems. Our customers had learned to really shop for minis. They wanted certain varieties; and they want the 'best plant', with or without blooms. Our customers wanted the Dee Bennett varieties; and we were hard pressed to keep Mom's popular, show roses in stock. Smelly varieties, like 'Sweet Chariot' were also extremely popular and would sell by the dozens. Half of our daily total was made from mini tree rose sales. Tiny Petals would plan months ahead for the 3 weeks of the Del Mar Fair. We would deadhead every bloom and even the buds from every rose in our inventory in the month of May to force blooms for the fair. Tiny Petals began participating in the garden competition about 1990, and we even sponsored a trophy with a cash award to acknowledge the 'Best Use Of Roses' in a garden display (except TPN, of course). The local rose societies fought hard to win the Dee Bennett Memorial Trophy. Is it any wonder that we chose to name Mom's pink test rose for this very special place, when we celebrated on 20th year as a vendor at the fair? 20 large plants of the test rose were used in a mass planting at the front of our fair garden in 1992. In fact, our whole garden was done in shades of pink and lavender against white lattice, just to highlight this new variety. The management of the fair was delighted to hear that this beautiful rose was to be named 'Del Mar Fair'. The garden show judges chose it for the 'Best Plant Specimen' award. In 1993, Tiny Petals released 'Del Mar Fair' for sale. The cross of 'Gene Boerner' (the great pink floribunda) and 'Pucker Up' (Mom's orange-red show mini) had produced a remarkable rose, which made large sprays of deep pink blooms. The clustering habit and large blooms with large foliage meant that the new rose would have to be classified as a floribunda. 'Del Mar Fair' was THE FIRST DEE BENNETT FLORIBUNDA. We sold the variety as own root, 4 inch potted plants, and prayed that our customers would not be disappointed that the roses weren't grafted. Happily, this rose was such a healthy, fast growing variety that our customers had large plants within just a few months. The 'Del Mar Fair' bush can easily attain a height 4 feet tall and just as wide. This is definitely a rose with good disease resistance, and it is a heavy bloomer. Unfortunately, last year, the city of Del Mar won a lawsuit that forced the name of the fair to be changed to the San Diego County Fair. Though the name is changed, most of us old timers will always call the fair by its original name; and the rose is definitely going to remain 'Del Mar Fair'. 'Fairest Of Fair' The Lady & The Rose I have told you about the annual San Diego County Fair, original called the Del Mar Fair, and Mom's rose that is named for that event. Now, I want to tell you about a very special title that also happens to be the name of one of Mom's mini roses. Each year, the local communities select young ladies, usual very beautiful, to represent their area as 'the Queen' of each particular city. The Queen would be titled Miss Chula Vista, Miss El Cajon, Miss Coronado, etc. There are about 20 of these 'Misses'. The ladies who win the title of 'Miss' this or that city will then compete against each other to become the Queen of the Del Mar Fair (now unfortunately called the San Diego County Fair). If a 'Miss' wins that competition, she becomes the 'Fairest Of Fair'. During the 3-week run of the annual event, the Fairest Of Fair is expected to greet visitors each day and represent the fair as it's reigning Queen. The formally dressed Fairest Of Fair and a couple of her court of honor are often seen, riding around the fairgrounds in a golf cart, festooned with silk flowers. The Fairest Of Fair spends most of her day giving out autographed photos of herself and posing for pictures with fairgoers. Several of these 'Fairests' have gone on to careers in limelight. One former Fairest Of Fair was Rachel Trejada (aka Rachel Welsh), the big busted and not so talented actress who gained fame as a cave woman, wearing very small pieces of wet animal skin and nothing else in a grade B movie classic. No one said that the Fairest Of Fair has to be smart...just good-looking. :) Mom got to know a few of the fair Queens quite well and decided to honor them all by naming one of her mini roses 'Fairest Of Fair' in 1982. She also started the custom of giving a plant of this rose to the reigning Queen as a remembrance of their reign as the Fairest Of Fair. Tiny Petals continued that custom every year that we had a booth at the fair. 'Fairest Of Fair' is pale yellow mini that was a cross of 'Sunbonnet' (a deep yellow floribunda) and 'Rise 'n Shine' (Ralph Moore's great, yellow mini Hall of Fame winner). The plant is low growing, rarely attaining a height of more than 15 inches. The blooms are not quite double and tend to open fast and fade to nearly white in hot weather. The plant itself is great for containers or a low border; but will get mildew, if not sprayed regularly. The Beautiful Up Sisters 'Pucker Up' Was First In 1984, Mom chose one of the Avon lipstick colors from her book of potential rose names to introduce a gorgeous, orange-red mini. She told me that the blooms on her new red test rose, "looked like they were puckered up lips." So, the puckered up mini got its name, 'Pucker Up'. This new rose was a cross of the hybrid tea, 'Futura', and the mini, 'Avandel'; and it was no ordinary mini. These flowers had killer show form. Unfortunately, this great mini was almost lost in that year of incredible roses. 'Pucker Up' was 3rd place out of the 21 roses in the Award of Excellence trials for that year. Any other time, it probably would have been #1; but this was the extraordinary year of 'Jean Kenneally' and 'Rainbow's End'. Despite the tough 1984 competition, 'Pucker Up' managed to win its share of royalty awards, including several Queens of Show. The first National Jan Shiver Trophy winner included 'Pucker Up' is the perfect 7 rose display. The Jan Shiver is still the highest honor that any minis can win. 'Pucker Up' was also one of the first of Mom's roses to be sold overseas. 1984 was the year that she assigned a foreign agent to represent and sell her creations in her homeland of Australia. It turned out to be a real disaster...but that's other story. (When I finally tell the tale of 'Madhatter', you will hear about that mess.) When Mom first introduced 'Pucker Up', I was helping out at TPN for a summer...that turned into a year, while I waited to start nursing school. That gave me the opportunity to take some very special photos of her roses, including a mass photo of Mom's 4 new varieties for 1982...'Jean Kenneally', 'Pops', 'My Delight' and 'Pucker Up'. Mom decided to pay for a page in the ARS annual, back when it was a book and not just a larger version of the popular Rose Magazine. The breathtaking photo came out in the annual, just as Tiny Petals Nursery made the extraordinary offer of a $20 gift certificate to anyone who made a Dee Bennett rose Queen of any ARS rose show. Guess who came up with that bright idea. I knew that Mom had some great minis, but they weren't getting enough attention from the exhibitors. If Mom had known that 'Jean Kenneally' was about to win more than 400 mini royalties, including dozens of ARS Mini Queens in that year, she probably would have said no to my idea immediately. *lol* Mom also took some flack from nurserymen who didn't like her new promotion idea one little bit. Maybe, they were upset, because so many rosarians were suddenly buying, showing and winning with Dee Bennett minis. The rose shows were awash with her creations, including some awesome entries of 'Pucker Up'. The top ten mini show roses for 1984 included 4 Dee Bennett minis. 'Jean Kenneally' stayed at the top of that list for 8 years, and 'Pucker Up' was on that list as well, until last year. By the way, Mom thought that 'Pucker Up' was going to be about a knee high plant, when she was still growing it in a 2 gallon pot as a stock plant. 90 days after I planted my 4 inch potted plant, that bush was 39 inches high and just as wide. She finally agreed to call 'Pucker Up' an extra tall mini. 'Pucker Up' always makes one-to-a-stem blooms...a very long stemmed bloom. Unfortunately, this mini does not have much of a fragrance for those of you who have to have perfume in your flowers. Most exhibitors only care about those killer blooms that last for days on the bush, refrigerate like iron, and hold their tight centers long enough to still look great, when the show is being torn down, after a long, hot weekend. 'Pucker Up' does all of that. Judges had a lot of trouble with 'Pucker Up' in its first year of competition. Many of them had only seen this rose as a pure orange-red mini in its early spring blooms, and they were unaware of its unique range of color. With enough sun, 'Pucker Up' makes a bloom that has a strong blush of dark, oriental red. The dark red overlay on the blooms is actually the best coloring for this rose in show. The effect is quite dynamic. Another Beautiful 'Up Sister' 'Cheer Up' By 1985, several hybridizers had begun to link their new rose releases to previous introductions with similar sounding names, in an attempt to create 'families of roses' under their previous successes. Examples of this were the 'Glo' minis by Ernie Williams, starting with 'Starglo', which was followed by a series of Glo's, including 'Dreamglo', 'Gloriglo', etc. Harm Saville had his 'Rainbow' and 'Star' series; and Meilland had their 'blazes'. Mom decided that some of her roses could follow this trend by linking a test rose or two to the great red mini, 'Pucker Up'. She already had a couple of good 'Ups' in her book of potential rose names. I suggested that she link only roses with real exhibition quality to the show stopping 'Pucker Up'...not just decorative or garden varieties. That would assure the Dee Bennett 'Up' series carried some weight with the exhibitors in the future. The 'Up' minis wouldn't be just sad 'follow ups' to a great mini. Excuse the pun. *lol* The next rose to be introduced in the series was 'Cheer Up'. This was a very appropriate name for the bright, orange-red mini with the wonderful show form flowers. 'Cheer Up' was definitely belonged in the 'Up' series. Here was a fast growing rose that could easily reach waist high and produced lots of long stemmed blooms. Sidebudding could be a problem though, as 'Cheer Up' also like to make new stems at the base of every leaflet on the thick cane. That was alright. The exhibitors soon learned to groom the hundreds of blooms for competition. 'Cheer Up' was soon winning plenty of trophies on the show tables, as Queens, sprays, collections and heads in the English Box. 'Cheer Up' had to get its color and form from its seed parent, 'Futura', the bright orange-red hybrid tea. Thank goodness that it didn't come out looking like its pollen parent, 'Bread 'n Butter'. That ugly yellow and orange mini is probably one of the worst looking roses that Mom ever created. Many people compared 'Cheer Up' to the hybrid tea 'Tropicana', and several folks have even nicknamed it 'Baby Tropicana'...but that is not a legal name to this bright mini champion. I'll bet that you didn't know, 'Cheer Up' nearly didn't get an introduction in the ARS Rose Magazine. Mom missed the deadline for the new rose issue and had to buy a half a page of last minute and very costly advertizing space, just to include the photos and descriptions of 'Cheer Up' and 'My Sunshine' (released at the same time) in that issue of the ARS Rose Magazine. Mom's mini introductions weren't on the pages with the other new roses; but at least, they made an appearance in that issue. Another Beautiful 'Up Sister' 'Cuddle Up' In 1991, I had the pleasure of choosing and naming the next rose in Mom's 'UP' series...'Cuddle Up'. This was actually one of the names that Mom had written in her book of potential rose names, and I felt that this rose was definitely good enough to have a place with this special group of Dee Bennett creations. The gorgeous, soft gold mini with the blush of pink had wonderful show form and even a sweet scent. God only knows where it got its blend of colors, but its fragrance probably came from the seed parent, 'Lagerfeld', which is a huge, lavender hybrid tea with great scent. The pollen parent was the soft, peach to pink mini, 'My Delight'. The generous, knee high plant makes wonderful one-to-a-stem blooms and even some small sprays; and the color becomes richer in warm weather. It is the wonderful blend of yellows and pinks that usually draws people to this flower. 'Cuddle Up' is still one of the few mini roses in my garden. Considering the severity of my downsizing, that should tell you how much I like this rose. If that weren't enough information about the third 'Up Sister', let me just add this tantalizing, little tidbit. Tiny Petals Nursery has a sport of 'Cuddle Up' with the same beautiful form. The color of the unnamed test is soft yellow with no blush.