Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Bloom of the Day


Pairs de Yves St. Laurent
Location, location, location. French rosarians learned this mantra back in 1827, when an infestation of root-eating grubs (larvae of the cockchafer beetle) threatened to destroy the nation's major rose fields, which concentrated in and around Pairs. Fleeing the "white worm" plague, rosarians moved south to salubrious climate of Angers, Lyon and Orleans. Thanks to its rapid decentralization, the French rose business rebounded, and several provincial rose-growing families, such a the Guillots in Lyon and the Meillands in Provence, became horticultural powerhouses.