Join us as Tom Carruth tells us about his time in the world of roses.

Tom Carruth is one of the greats of modern rose breeding – the winner of 11 All-America Rose Selections (AARS) and creator of more than 150 cultivars.  When he finished up his graduate work in plant breeding, he was just in the right spot at the right time. Tom started working with Jackson and Perkins, which is a huge name in the US, and which was at its full monster size at that point, too.”

After about three and a half years his breakthrough into breeding came with a job as a rose breeder at Armstrong Nurseries. That was in 1979. He was to breed roses for another 33 years – first at Armstrong and then for 25 years at another famous home, Weeks Roses.  Carruth left Weeks in 2012 to curate the Rose Collection at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. But his roses have continued to be released.

Does he miss the breeding? He says: “I miss seeing the babies, because that was always an exciting time – when they were starting to open and you never knew what they were going to be. Do I miss the corporate stuff? No. At the Huntington I’m out with plants every day in a garden setting. I’m learning new things from a horticultural point of view, and that’s always exciting.”

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