Code = MEI---
MEILLAND, Antoine "Papa Meilland" (June 1884 Chamboeuf - February 9, 1971)
MEILLAND, Francis (1912 - June 15, 1958)
MEILLAND, Alain (b. 1940)
MEILLAND, Mrs. Marie-LouiseMEILLAND, Marie-LouisetteMEILLAND, Michele RichardierMEILLAND International S.A.Selection MEILLAND: see also SUPPLIERS: SELECTION MEILLAND
[From Roses: Species and Varieties; Description and Photographs, by Van Dijk and Kurpershoek, p. 15:] In 1945 [Meilland] introduced one of the most famous of all roses, Peace.
[From The Makers of Heavenly Roses, by Jack Harkness, pp. 122-123:] After nine years with [Francis] Dubreuil, during which he fell in love with Claudia, he sought his employer's permission to marry his daughter. The wedding took place on the fourth of December, 1909. A son, Francis Meilland, was born in 1912... Antoine was called up to fight the Germans in 1914... [Antoine] came back from the army in 1919... With great difficulty they got twenty thousand root-stocks, planted and budded them, only to see the crop wiped out by a plague of root eating maybugs...
[From The Hunt for the Perfect Rose, by Trish Wesley, Horticulture, May 1999, p. 14:] West Grove, Pennsylvania, home of Conard-Pyle Roses, a wholesaler, is one of five major trial gardens for the House of Meilland. Another (also run by Conard-Pyle) is in Wasco, California; two others are in France and one in Germany.
The West Grove trials start with 10 plants of each new variety, shipped from France. Those with potential are propagated and tested the following year with 50 plants. If they make the cut, 500 plants are propagated to allow breeders sufficient plant material upon which to base their final judgment... Attractive foliage and disease resistance are critical concerns, especially for the shrub roses that are bred for landscape use. To this end, the West Grove trials include a no-spray zone. This trial by fire eliminates many varieties from consideration. Those making this difficult cut will be rugged enough to survive in most gardens...
[From Meilland: A Life in Roses, by Alain Meilland, p. 5:] My family "got into roses" more than a century ago, around 1850. Since then we have continued to work, hybridize, observe, reflect, notice, and classify... Our experimental centers are scattered all over the surface of the globe... our immense greenhouses, with their twenty-four thousand square meters of glass surface at Cap d'Antibes, are laboratories. Almost all of the flowers blooming and developing there are headed for destruction and disappearance. Trials and tests eliminate the majority of them...
[p. 29:] In the beginning, [Alain Meilland's mother] herself performed cross-fertilization.
[From The Makers of Heavenly Roses, by Jack Harkness, p. 123:] Francis... at the age of fourteen... began to go every day with his father [Antoine] to work on the Meilland rose nursery...
[From ibid, p. 126: in 1935, he travelled to the US and came back with some important ideas] to sell roses, one needed a good catalogue with colour; to grow them, one must employ machinery; to keep them in good condition for sale, cool storage was essential; and for the breeder, some protection of his copyright was just and right. He spent the rest of his life putting those maxims into effect. Meilland's catalogue was in colour the very next year, a procedure by no means the habit of Franch rose nurseries... 'Golden State' was Francis Meilland's first successful variety [it] was introduced in America by the Conard-Pyle Company in 1937... [the name] tied the yellow rose to the International Exhibition in San Francisco...
[From The Ultimate Rose Book, by Stirling Macoboy, p. 185:] Alain Meilland raised quite a few roses with musical names... 'Symphonie', 'Allegro', 'Concerto', 'Sarabande', 'Minuetto' and 'Fugue'.
[From Roses: An Illustrated Encyclopaedia and Grower's Handbook, by Peter Beales, p. 36:] Sadly, Francis [Meilland] died prematurely in 1958 but in his short life had been the driving force behind the building of the biggest and probably the best rose-breeding establishment in the world.
[From Sixth Annual Goulding Memorial Lecture, Newsletter of the Societe des roses du Quebec Rose Society, December 2000 / February 2001, p. 13-15:] All Meilland's rose breeding is done in southern France in Le Lucen, which is near St. Tropez. There are five test sites located in central and southern France, northern Germany, north eastern and south western United States...
[From The Encyclopedia of Roses, by Robert Markley, p. 20:] Francis Meilland died on June 15, 1958 of incurable cancer at the age of 46.
