Pink Procelain

Yep. A customer named this rose. Mom liked to show her customers what test roses were blooming, when they visited Tiny Petals. During one of these walkabouts in the test area, a woman customer stopped to take a closer look at a pale pink bloom. Then, she touched it and said, "It just doesn't look real. It looks like it's been made of...pink porcelain." It was just as simple as that.

Mom liked the idea, and the 'porcelain looking' test rose was registered as 'Pink Porcelain' in 1980. Surprisingly, this mini was not introduced as 'a new rose' in the TPN catalog, until 1983.

In the early 80's, Mom had asked me to help her with some paperwork. To be exact, she had 12 patents that were all about to be declined or abandoned, because Mom's attempts to write patents were pathetic.

Among those first patent applications was the rose 'Pink Porcelain'. I still remember writing the new patent papers for that rose. Mom had failed to keep any copies of her original applications and descriptions; so, I had to start from scratch. That including taking a new photo too.

I remember staging the collection of blooms for the photo that Mom would use several years later in her 1987 color catalog. I also remember tearing those blooms apart to do the petal count and match the color to the Wilson Colour Charts.

'Pink Porcelain' has unbelievable parentage. It is the same cross of as 'Jean Kenneally'. The seed parent was 'Futura' (an orange-red hybrid tea), and the pollen parent was 'Avandel' (a yellow blend mini). It is hard to imagine either of those roses producing a seedling like 'Pink Porcelain'.

This mini makes a knee-high plant with dark green foliage and tons of blooms in delicate pink that have only a slightly damask scent. The blooms which come one-to-a-stem or in small sprays are heavily petaled and take several days to fully open.

Unfortunately, the flowers do have a tendency to show a hole in the middle of the bloom, when it opens past the 1/4 point. This can be discouraging to exhibitors, who are looking for a truly high center.