How innovative thinking shaped SA's rose powerhouse

- Glenneis Kriel

In the past, rose propagation consisted of 18 months of field growing with sales being limited to two winter months. Gardeners ordered bare-root rose plants from catalogues, and particularly the Rand Easter Show, for plants to be mailed in July. Retail nurseries also bought these plants, heeled them into sand or sawdust, and then just pulled up the pruned plant and wrapped it in newspaper when it was sold. Sales were over by mid-August.

But that was until the German-born nurseryman Ludwig Taschner came along and pioneered the propagation of roses in containers. The shift revolutionised the way in which roses were sold; plants were now available throughout most of the year and allowed gardeners to select rose plants based on their flowers, fragrance and growth habit. It also formed the foundation of one of the most popular rose nurseries in South Africa – Ludwig’s Roses.

What did you do before you started Ludwig’s Roses?

I was born in Germany during World War II. I trained as a nurseryman and subsequently escaped from East Germany in 1960. Thereafter I gained invaluable experience by working in nurseries in West Germany, Switzerland

It was incredibly time-consuming and limiting, and no wonder the use of plant bags caught on so quickly.

At the time, wholesale customers bought Buss Nurseries’ field-grown rose plants to plant them into these plant bags. Great losses were suffered due to the use of fresh compost and fertiliser as well as over- and under-watering. I soon realised that it would be better to propagate the rose plants in plant bags from the start. We could then offer flowering rose plants throughout the year for immediate sale, virtually with a guarantee that the plants would not die.

Top management of Buss Nurseries, who were not horticulturists, bluntly rejected this idea, saying there would and England, where I started specialising in rose growing.