Aoril 19, 1915 - March 28, 1991
Julie Gustafson is the webmaster for
The Buck Rose Web Site. Here you'll find descriptions and photos of Dr. Bucks' roses. The Buck roses are the proprietary property of the Iowa State University Research Foundation and in recognition of Dr. Buck's accomplishment, a collection of these roses is being established at the
Reiman Gardens in Ames, Iowa. [
You can find out more about this garden in our Gardens section.]
[From The Ultimate Rose Book, by Stirling Macoboy, p. 176:] The late Griffith Buck's rose-breeding programme, carried out under the auspices of Iowa State University, had as its aim the production of roses that would be disease-resistant, easy to grow, and able to put up with the bitterly cold winters of the United States Mid-West. They mostly resemble the modern Bush Roses in habit and with the same pruning would blend happily with them, though most would be on the tall side.
[From Peter Schneider on Roses, by Peter Schneider, p. 151: Dr. Buck] wanted to breed shrub roses that would be winter hardy in the Midwest, and he succeeded. Along the way he also took a step toward blue in roses and developed numerous varieties whose amazing colors are unmatched in modern roses... [p. 152:] Of the more than fifty Griffith Buck hybrids that have been registered, only about twenty are readily available. Even more remain nameless, grown only under test numbers. Iowa State University is establishing a new display garden at Ames, Iowa, that will preserve all of the roses that Dr. Buck developed...
[From Botanica's Roses, p. 677:] Buck worked with roses between the 1950s and the 1990s in Iowa, and aimed to breed hardier garden roses...
There's quite a collection of Dr. Buck's Roses at the Elko County Rose Garden in Nevada.
