Harkness roses

Hawa Mahal

Hawa Mahal, Hindi for The Palace of Winds, was introduced in 1976.
The name was probably suggested by the Harkness agent in Jaipur. The palace, an ornate
structure of red and pink sandstone, is in the middle of Jaipur, part of the City Palace built by a
Maharaja in 1799. It has latticed screens and arches through which blow currents of air. The pyramidal
shape represents the crown of Krishna, the Hindu god. Its unique five-storey exterior looks like the
honeycomb of a beehive with 953 small windows decorated with intricate latticework which allowed the
royal harem to watch life in the street below without being seen.

Dame of Sark

In 1973 Peter received a letter from Edith Page of the Dixcart Hotel on Sark in the Channel
Islands. She was a friend of Harkness customer, Sibyl Hathaway DBE, the Dame of Sark. Mrs Page
said that as Dame Hathaway was about to celebrate her 90th birthday it would be ‘a gracious gesture
if one of your new seedlings roses could be named for her.’ Peter suggested H791A be called Dame of
Sark (parents are Pink Parfait, Masquerade, Orange Sensation, All Gold, Super Star and Piccadilly.

In January 1974 the Dame received 259 cards and 114 telegrams of congratulation. However,
she said that her most welcome and unexpected present was the news that Harkness had not only
named a rose for her but that three plants had arrived in time for her birthday. When the red floribunda
was introduced formally to the general buying public a year later, more bushes arrived for her rose
bed. The Dame died before she could meet Celia Johnson who was playing her in The Dame of Sark
in Oxford. William Douglas Home had adapted his play from her autobiography and sent it to her for
approval.

Two years later, at the 1976 Chelsea Flower Show, Peter noticed a man looking at Dame of
Sark. Thinking he recognised him Peter said; Are you the actor Peter Barkworth? No the chap said,
I’m Tony Britton. He explained he was appearing in the play The Dame of Sark in the Duke of York
Theatre in the West End of London. Peter gave him a rose for Dame Anna Neagle who was playing
the part of the Dame of Sark inviting him to return on the last day of the Show when he could have lots
more. When Mr Britton arrived he said if Peter could go to the play the following Monday, two tickets
would be waiting for him at the Box Office. When he rang to ask if he could buy two more for his
daughters Peter was told they too would be complimentary.

On the Monday evening Peter, his wife Margaret and daughters Anne and Rosemary went to the
Stage Door before the show and left a basket of Dame of Sark roses for Dame Anna Neagle. As they
were being shown to their seats the House Manager turned up to escort hem to better ones in the
stalls. She turned up again in the Interval, took them to the Cecil Beaton Room and opened a bottle of
champagne.

After the Show Tony Britton still in his Nazi uniform showed them round the set. Peter noticed the
stage manager had the phone number of the Dame of Sark right but that the wedding photograph was
not of the Dame but of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. They were shown into Anna Neagle’s
dressing room and were pleasantly surprised to see how sprightly she was not the limping woman on
stage (The Dame of Sark was lame). As she autographed their programmes she told them she had
arranged for a photographer to record the occasion, a lasting memento of an amazing evening and all
because Peter got his thespians mixed up. In 1984 Harkness added another string to its illustrious
bow. The new postage stamp for Sark showed the Dame of Sark, the only rose given such high
honour.

Sibyl Collings, daughter of the Seigneur of Guernsey, moved to Sark when she was a baby. She
married Robert Hathaway and succeeded her father as Seigneur in 1927.

The Channel Islands were occupied by Nazis for much of World War II. In 1940 Germany
bombed the harbours of Guernsey and Jersey. What they thought were troop carriers were trucks of
tomatoes for export to England. Forty-four islanders were killed in the raids. Many inhabitants were
imprisoned for acts of protest and defiance. Others were deported and held in camps from which some
did not return. The islands, closer to France than Britain, were the only part of the British Isles to be
occupied by German forces during the war. Dame Hathaway wrote about the occupation in her
autobiography.

The author wrote to La Seigneurie and received this reply. I have enquired of the Head Gardener
at La Seigneurie Gardens. They no longer have the rose in the gardens…they have been unable to
obtain more plants ...though they would like to. It is possible that the rose is still grown elsewhere in
Sark in private gardens but I don't know whether this is the case or not.
Sark uses Bailiwick of Guernsey stamps; we do not have our own. Sark post office tells me that the
rose has not appeared in any editions for several years.



Margaret Merrill

A pollination which caused excitement in 1972 was a seedling which would eventually be called
Margaret Merrill. Its white/pink flowers gave out a very sweet scent. In 1977, in international trials, it
won eighteen awards, five Gold Medals and six awards for fragrance.

Harkness was asked for The Ulay Rose with the same sweet subtle fragrance and the same
delicate pink colour as the famous beauty product Oil of Ulay invented in South Africa in 1949 by an
ex-Unilever chemist from Durban. The name was a spin on lanolin its main ingredient. It caught on
because it was something a bit different, a fluid not a heavy cream. It was sold in an attractive heavy
glass bottle and could be bought only at chemists. The name Ulay was changed to Olay in 1999.
Bizarrely the Company was bought out by Richardson Merrell.

Ulay not being a very imaginative or catchy name, Harkness suggested it be called Margaret
Merrill after its beauty counsellor. It turned out that although there was a real beauty counsellor, her
name Margaret Merrill was made up. Harkness decided it had better make sure no real Margaret
Merrill would object to a rose bearing the name so started looking for namesakes.

When the Swiss authorities asked for her consent in writing it was explained she isn’t a real
person. However Harkness received letters from Margaret Merrill’s in Bristol, in London and in
America. All were delighted with ‘their’ rose.

In 1981 came what must surely be the jewel in the Harkness crown. Not only did Lady Diana
Spencer choose Mountbatten for her wedding bouquet, Harkness was asked to supply English roses
in apricot and cream to decorate St Paul’s Cathedral on that memorable day. It decided on Anne
Harkness and Margaret Merrill.

Greensleeves

1972 saw the pollination of Rudolph Timm x Arthur Bell x unknown seedling yields a truly
extraordinary seedling L480A. HARlen (l for the year and memory tag for Lent). Bred for
fragrance, it turned out not to have any. By the time it was launched at the British Rose Festival
in 1980 it had become Greensleeves as in the Elizabethan folk song.

This very special Jack Harkness rose, a chartreuse green opening from pinky green buds,
brought gasps of delight, disbelief, wonder, disgust and horror. One visitor suggested its name be
changed to Sea-sickness.

Baden Baden in Germany however awarded it a Special Prize in trials.
In 1980, Harkness received a letter from Paris Parks inviting them to send a supply of
Greensleeves which they would pot, grow on and stage for the Salon International de la Rose. At
least that’s what Jack thought they meant. It turned out that Harkness was expected to go to
Paris for a week at the end of June and stage the roses themselves. Peter found out the space
they were allocated and marked it out in his garden so that the pots could be placed in the right
positions when he got there.
When they arrived they were greeted by a line of half dead potted cherry trees slap bang
in front of their space. These were promptly consigned to the compost heap. The next challenge
was to break up the solid sandy soil to bed in the pots. No mean feat.
Peter was invited to a Reception celebrating the official opening of river bank works on the
Seine. The local MP mistakenly thought Harkness represented the Lord Mayor of London and
was very happy to see them. Peter didn’t have the heart to disabuse him.
Regular and welcome visitors to the Harkness garden in Paris were the film actor James
Mason and his wife Clarissa. Keen rose growers they were often seen at Shows. Another visitor,
the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, said Greensleeves was bizarre.

Paul Shirville

Colleagues of Paul Shirville, a gifted design engineer at Jebron Ltd in the Midlands, wanted a
rose named for him as a surprise retirement present.

Harkness chose HARqueterwife the sweet smelling result of Compassion × Mischief.
Paul Shirville, launched at the 1983 Chelsea Flower Show won four awards for fragrance and
twelve for good plant qualities.
Mr Shirville was so delighted with his rose he had a photo of it put on his credit card!

Beryl Bach

One day, a Mr Emil Willemstyn called in to the Harkness Nursery. Brought up in the Dutch East
Indies, left destitute after the war he made his home in Britain where he met, fell in love and married
Beryl, a Welsh girl. She always called him Bach, a Welsh term of endearment (small boys are often
called bachgen) so he wanted a rose named Beryl Bach for her. Peter suggested HARtesia (Korresia x
Silver Jubilee) a fragrant hybrid tea.

After the usual terms were arranged, half payment on registration of the rose and the remainder
when it was introduced, Peter sent him some bushes for his garden. When they came into flower the
following summer Mr Willemstyn, delighted with the large yellow rose, sent off the first instalment.

Plans to introduce it in 1985 went ahead although Harkness was mystified as to why Mr
Willemstyn had not replied to any of their letters keeping him in the picture regarding progress. Peter
then received a letter from a solicitor to say that Mr Willemstyn died in his rose garden of natural
causes. He had gone through his papers and found his commitment to Harkness. The payment would
be honoured as he would have wished. How wonderful to think he died near the rose he had named
for his beloved Beryl Bach.

Beryl Bach is in fact grammatically incorrect. The Welsh language has two genders. It also has
mutations. Emil Bach is correct for males but in written Welsh, the name of the rose mutates to Beryl
Fach. In spoken Welsh, however, the rules are not so hard and fast. One may say Beryl Bach or Beryl
Fach when speaking to the same person.

Bill Slim

The 1988 Chelsea Flower Show sees the launch of Bill Slim commissioned by The Burma Star
Association. Raised by Jack the rose completed the trio named to honour his Commanding Officers in
WWII. The others were Alexander and Mountbatten. General Slim’s daughter-in-law who turned up at
the Show said she didn’t think he would have like being placed next to Mountbatten on the stand.
There was no love lost between the two.

Some Commanding Officers are respected by their men, some are even admired but Field
Marshall Bill Slim, open, down to earth, funny and self-deprecating was loved. He was, they said, one
of them, them in the sense he was not part of the royal family as was Lord Mountbatten or the
aristocracy as was General Alexander, he reached high rank because of merit and merit only.

Bill, whose father was a shop owner, joined the Officers' Training Corps (OTC) as a boy. WWI
opened a door that would otherwise have remained closed. He received a commission. Posted to
Gallipoli, he was badly wounded. He had barely recovered when he was posted to Mesopotamia.
Technically unfit for active service, he won a Military Cross.

When WWII was declared Slim was appointed as brigade commander. He commanded what is
said to be the longest, most difficult withdrawal in British military history.

General Sir George Giffard, Commander-in-Chief and CO of the 11trh Army, did his best to oust
Slim, CO of the 14th Army but Lord Mountbatten had more faith in Slim than he did in Giffard, who he
dismissed. Giffard was replaced as supreme commander by Sir Oliver Leese.

When the Japanese planned to strike in the Arakan Slim stood on the defensive then attacked.
Victory in the Arakan was the battlefield turning point in Burma. Slim was faced with the most complex,
geographically sprawling battle ever commanded by any British army commander after which Slim was
knighted by the viceroy.

The 14th Army marched to Rangoon. Slim's men bore the brunt of the fighting and reached
Rangoon just before the monsoon broke in April 1945. In May, one of the most brilliant campaigns
ever conducted by a British general ended with Slim being almost ousted again. Lieutenant-General
Sir Oliver Leese told him he was to be removed from command of the 14th Army which was about to
invade Malaya. Slim, devastated, put in for retirement instead. In the event, Slim did leave the 14th but
as a full General, taking Leese's position as Commander-in-Chief.

In 1948, PM Clement Attlee chose Slim to replace General Montgomery as Chief of Staff. When
Churchill returned to office he came to admire Slim as did Slim's staff at the War Office.

In 1952 Slim was appointed governor-general of Australia and served seven years. He became a
knight of the Garter in 1959 and was raised to the peerage in 1960. After his return from Australia, his
final appointment, in 1963, was constable and governor of Windsor Castle. He remained in office until
he died in 1970. His funeral was held in St George's Chapel, Windsor.





Red Hat Lady

Red Hat Lady, named for the UK arm of The Red Hat Society™ was introduced in 2009. Pure
red with an abundance of blooms, its compact, dome like form is perfect as a standard rose.

Although it started in America thirteen years ago, the Society it was inspired by Warning! a poem
written in England by Jenny Joseph, an award winning Oxford graduate. The Society was originally
aimed at women over fifty, but Ms Joseph was only 30 when she gave warning that when she was old
she would wear purple with a red hat.

The poem touched a nerve with thousands of women as has the Society which has 80,000
members all over the word for whom fun is missing from their lives. They wear red hats and purple
outfits.

The Society wants to change the way older women are portrayed. Since reaching the UK seven
years ago, eighty branches or chapters have sprung up.

It reached pop culture status in 2005 when Marge Simpson, 34, a closet feminist joined. She
accused Homer of spending less on gifts for her than on his temporary tattoos. An ideal member,
Marge, 34, is a strong character who takes bowling and flirting lessons and once launched her own
pretzel truck business to take on the mob.

The James Mason Memorial Medal

When Jack crossed Southampton with Darling Flame he gave the flower a memory name,
HARprocrustes (HAR) Harkness (p) year of the cross (crustes).

Because its miniature flowers formed on stems which grew too tall for his liking the rose
reminded him of a Greek myth about a robber called Procrustes the son of Poseidon who conducted a
reign of terror. Living on the road to Athens, he invited travellers to spend the night then adjusted his
guests to fit his spare bed. Those who were too tall had their legs shortened, those too short were
stretched. The last traveller was Theseus who made Procrustes lie in his own bed. When he proved
too tall, he cut off his head.

Little did Jack know that his rose would end up in Switzerland, in the garden of a world famous
film star. Harprocrustes was introduced in 1983 as Clarissa for Clarissa Kaye Mason wife of James
Mason.

In 1981 when the Rose Society invited her to open The British Rose Festival at St. Albans
Harkness was asked if they could come up with a new rose for Clarissa. They could. She was
delighted.

Names such as these show not only Jack’s quirky sense of humour but his love of and wide
knowledge of literature.

Peter says Clarissa is difficult to classify because it looks like a miniature rose on stilts. It is
probably the only rose to be given six different classifications by recognised authorities (Jack wanted it
classified as a China rose).

In May 1984 at the Chelsea Flower Show Peter, Jack and Philip had their photograph taken by
James Mason. That same year Mason completed The Shooting Party, which he filmed simultaneously
with a BBC TV film Dr Fischer of Geneva but suffered a fatal heart attack in Lausanne shortly after
filming (he had survived a cardiac arrest in 1959).

Clarissa asked the Royal National Rose Society to award a James Mason Memorial Medal for
the rose which had given the most pleasure in the previous fifteen years saying she personally would
award the Medal to the raiser of the rose.

Alexander won in 1987 fifteen years after it was introduced, Margaret Merril won in 1990 and
Amber Queen (although it was only nine years old) in 1993.

James Mason’s distinctive deep cultured voice and striking good looks made him famous in the
1940s for the Gainsborough melodramas The Man in Grey, The Wicked Lady, The Seventh Veil and
Odd Man Out. Other starring rôles included Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, North by
Northwest, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Lord Jim and Doctor Polidori in Frankenstein: The True
Story. Rommel, Desert Fox; Julius Caesar and A Star in Born brought him Oscar nominations. One of
his last rôles, that of corrupt lawyer Ed Concannon in The Verdict in 1982 earned him another Oscar
nomination.

Mason, born in Yorkshire the son of a wealthy textile merchant was at Marlborough with poets
Louis Macneice and John Betjeman and the spy Anthony Blunt. He gained a First Class Honours
Degree in Architecture from Cambridge and remained passionate about architecture all his life.

To his family’s disgust who broke off all contact with him, he was a life long committed pacifist
and a conscientious objector. When WWII was declared he moved to America. A loner, known for his
love of cats and dogs, Mason hated Hollywood and Hollywood hated him because he refused to take
American citizenship. He returned to London in 1953 to make The Man Between.

Until he moved to Switzerland, he had been living in Hollywood with his wife Pamela Kellino who
he married during the war. It was not a happy marriage and they divorced in 1962. The split cost
Mason his home, custody of his children and his fortune made from films.

Mason was filming in Australia in 1969 when he met Clarissa Kaye, an Australian actress. Her
first film role was in Age of Consent in which she appeared in a scene with Mason. When filming was
over, he, twenty-four years her senior, wrote to her. They married in 1971 in Switzerland and were
seldom apart. Clarissa who styled herself Clarissa Kaye Mason brought him a much longed for
contentment in a very happy marriage. She died of cancer in 1994.

19
Glittering Prizes

Rome gold medal Atlantis
Baden Baden
Escapade
Guinevere
Greensleeves
Belfast
Gold
Escapade
Jack Harkness received an OBE and over 500 awards for his new roses.
RHS Award of Garden Merit Margaret Merrill (‘HARkuly’)
Mountbatten (‘Harmantelle’) The first Rose of The Year in 1982
Amber Queen Jack’s first AARS in 1988
AARS winning rose excelled in an extensive two-year trial program where it’s judged on everything
from rose disease resistance to flower production, colour and fragrance. We conduct these tests in our
nationwide gardens to represent all climate zones. Each garden is also given the care of an average
home garden so these roses aren’t spoiled. If they can thrive during our testing, they will most certainly
thrive in your garden.
Each AARS test garden has a judging panel that participates in our bi-annual scoring process. In this
“blind process,” judges do not know the breeder or introducer for the plants they’re grading, and
they’re asked to submit scores by serial number.
In our test gardens, the roses are carefully evaluated on a number of criteria. In fact, the judges put
many hours of observation into monitoring the performance of the top roses throughout the growing
season. They grade each of the roses on the following characteristics:
•Novelty
•Form - of both buds and open blooms
•Colour throughout the blooming cycle
•Aging quality
•Flowering effect
•Rose Fragrance
•Stem/cluster form
•Plant habit
•Vigour
•Foliage
•Rose Disease resistance
•Repeat bloom quality
Each winning rose bears the AARS red rose logo as a “seal of approval” that ensures gardeners that
the plants will grow beyond expectations with little maintenance.



20

Jack Harkness

A Tribute

His roses were beautiful and they were fun Peter Schneider USA

In 1986 Jack, having won five hundred international awards, was awarded the Order of the
British Empire (OBE) for his contributions to rose breeding and growing, the only rosarian ever to do
so. His most important, most original, contribution to the science of rose breeding is manifested in
Nigel Hawthorne, Tigris and Euphrates, hybrids of rosa persica (the wild desert rose), the best of fifty-
three raised over ten years.

Jack Harkness, Major Harkness, OBE, rose breeder non-pareil, died in 1994. He left his wife
Betty, daughter Elizabeth, sons Robert and Philip, Peter, a grand daughter and four wonderful books
known in the trade as ‘The Old Testament of New Roses’.

Born in Shropshire, he was named John after his grandfather but was always known as Jack. His
father Verney Harkness OBE, a civil servant, had little interest in roses, Jack’s introduced 222 new
named varieties. Many were commercially successful and became household names.

Of his many glowing obituaries, The Daily Telegraph said he was ‘one of the most renowned rose
breeders of the century’. Another said: 'In the fiercely competitive world of rose breeding it was said
that Jack made no rivals only friends’.

Jack worked out that although, in his opinion, he had raised only five first class roses, out of
several hundred thousand seedlings he had introduced fifty-three named varieties. His most famous
are Alexander, Compassion, Southampton, Mountbatten, Yesterday, Elizabeth Harkness, Margaret
Merrill, Remembrance and, his favourite, Escapade. Nine of those won the coveted Rose of The Year
(ROTY) award. Alexander, Compassion, Southampton, Mountbatten, Yesterday, Elizabeth Harkness,
Margaret Merrill, Escapade and Amber Queen.

Bill Harkness said: ‘any fool can grow a rose, it takes a genius to sell it’. The same could be said
of Jack: Any fool can grow a rose, it takes a genius to breed one. Until he joined them there was only a
handful of important commercial rose breeders worldwide.

Jack, who without doubt was the most successful British rose hybridiser in the second half of this
century, a legend in the rose world, said: ‘The roses we breed have a short life and the best fame we
could earn would be the recognition by gardeners in another century that there is key to a better rose
had been something we produced’.

Jack Leigh Harkness – christened John after his grandfather - was born in 1918 into a family long
been involved in horticulture. With little interest in academia he left school at fifteen to join Slieve
Donard Nursery in Northern Ireland whose owner learned his trade under Jack’s grandfather John.

He spent three happy years there before he joined his cousin Bill Harkness of R. Harkness & Co
in Hitchin Hertfordshire. Wanting to create his new varieties he started crossing roses. None survived.
In any case, his rose breeding aspirations would have come to a natural end because in 1939 war was
declared.

When Jack was called up he joined The Hertfordshire Regiment, The Sherwood Foresters and
ended up in the Third Battalion Second Punjab Regiment In 1943, in Burma, he walked a hundred
miles, by night, from Chittagong to the Arakan to join the 14th Army, the largest allied force in WWII.
There, his Regiment was greeted by a tall man in a white uniform, Lord Mountbatten. ‘You call
yourselves the forgotten army’? he said, ‘well, you are wrong. At home they haven't even heard of
you’.

In 1943 when Mountbatten got air support for the 14th Army, General William (Bill) Slim inspired
his men to rely on air-dropped supplies and hold their ground when attacked. Under Slim the 14th was
transformed from a humiliated force driven out of Burma into a highly motivated army. Men crouched
in trenches yards away from the enemy. From the plop of a grenade being fired to its arrival was
fourteen seconds. Day and night, troops were subjected to Japanese broadcasts advising them to
surrender. The regiment lost 15,000 lives. The 14th, despite numerous problems caused by different
languages, diets and religions defeated the enemy, the only time a Japanese field army was beaten. It
was the last multi-racial army (British, Indian, Ghurkha, Burmese and African) to fight under the British
flag. The Burma Campaign, the longest of the war, was said Japan their hardest, the one in which they
suffered the biggest defeat their army has ever known.

Japan wanted Burma for many reasons, for its strategic value and for its rice. Burma welcomed
Japan as liberators from the British. After the war, its leader, Aung San, came to the UK to negotiate
terms for independence. He was assassinated with most of his Cabinet. The country has been
unstable ever since. Aung San's daughter Aung San Suu Kyi, continues to oppose the regime.

Jack and another million served under Field Marshal Viscount Slim KG. GCB. GCMG. GCVO.
GBE. DSO. MC. He was loved by his men, an inspiration for the 14th Army which under him beat
Japan at its own game. He always wore a battered slouch hat. "Take a good look at my mug," he used
to say …I am the Army Commander and you had better be able to recognize me - if only to say “Look
out, the old b . . . is coming round". Earl Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia
said Slim was "the finest general World War II produced".

Jack also served under Earl Alexander sent by Winston Churchill to take supreme command in
Burma. Famous for his North African campaigns against Rommel. Alexander is said to have been
Britain’s greatest military commander since the Duke of Wellington. His funeral was held in St

George’s Chapel, Windsor. One day Jack will create roses in honour of his commanding officers:
Mountbatten, Alexander and Bill Slim.

When the war was over, unlike soldiers in Europe who returned to a tumultuous welcome there
were no public celebrations for Jack and his comrades of The Forgotten Army. Jack, Major Jack
Harkness, mentioned in Despatches for his actions during the Burma Campaign, home after a long,
gruelling war, suggested they breed their own roses but Bill did not think it made good business sense.
Major Jack Harkness, mentioned in Despatches for his actions during the Burma Campaign, returned
home to find the Nursery struggling for survival. In 1947 Jack married Betty Moore. The last rose he
created will be named for her. They will have a daughter, Elizabeth and two sons Robert and Philip.

Jack’s work is continued by his sons Robert in Hitchin where the breeding and raising of new
varieties continues and Philip in France.
Ends