The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 160

Liz Taylor Rose Continued It's also "creative" in the mutations or "sports" it has produced. Besides the reddish-pink original, Weddle has developed "Elizabeth Taylor" variations in light pink and orange pink. Robert Lee Whitaker, a Nashville consulting engineer and internationally known rose authority, said "Elizabeth Taylor" is a remarkable achievement. "Both 'First Prize' and 'Swarthmore' are really popular and highly marketable roses, and 'Elizabeth Taylor' has the best characteristics of each parent," Whitaker said. "It's really an unusual situation to relia, rear their two children.

His interest in roses blossomed into a wild romance. He started with six rosebushes; by 1 96 1 he had 300. He also began exhibiting his roses. He became one of the contestants at district and national rose shows, preening and picking over their buds, jealously guarding their secret strategies. It was a crazy, ego-bruising, high-pressure scene, but Weddle emerged victorious, winning 1 5 top prizes.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Taylor won an Oscar for "Butterfield 8" (1961) and became the country's highest-paid movie star. During the filming of her next picture, the great turkey "Cleopatra," she became romantically involved with co-star Richard Burton. Their off-screen affair the kind newspaper writers used to call "sizzling" resulted in a divorce from Fisher, marriage to Burton and more criticism from various guardians of public morality. Taylor and Burton went on to do nine films together, including "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" 1 966), in which Taylor played the fat, shrewish wife of a college professor, a performance that won her another Academy Award. Back in Indiana, Weddle now had 600 rosebushes and had become interested in breeding roses.

Creating new rose hybrids is tedious, painstaking work. The hybridizer plans a marriage of two kinds of roses. He removes the pollen-packed stamens (male part of the flower) from one rose and applies the pollen to the oozing pistil (female part) of the other rose variety. If the union is successful, seed pods form and the ripe seeds are later shelled out and planted in trays. When the blooms finally form, those with too few petals or bad centers are thrown out.

Most breeding attempts end in failure. Out of thousands of tries, only a few achieve any measure of success. "You never know what will happen when you cross roses," said Weddle. "It's like with traveling around the country to rose shows were over. Weddle stayed at home, tending his now 900 rosebushes and devoting more energy to creating new rose hybrids.

The hybridizer is an artist, Weddle said. "Creating a new rose is a form of expression, an expression of your talent." In 12 years as a hybridizer, he has produced 22 hybrids he would rate as decent efforts. He has given names to some, and those names are registered like those of thoroughbred racehorses. A tough critic, he's pleased with "Maid of Honor" (1984), a yellow rose with a pink center that's available through Hortico, Inc. His "Louisville Lady" (1984) has a lovely smelling, light-pink blossom with a silver reverse (underside of the petal), but Weddle fears it may not be very hardy.

He has no reservations about "Elizabeth Taylor," a blend of the "Swarthmore" and "First Prize" varieties that he hit upon nearly 12 years ago. As soon as he saw its baby blossoms, Weddle knew he had created something special. The rose is bright, light red and deep pink; it has a light, pleasant fragrance. Its bush is dark-green and glossy; its stem is long, topped with a shapely, pointed bud. Its bloom is very high-centered a characteristic favored in rose competitions and has 30 large petals.

"The petals never seem to fall, maintaining good color until you are ready to pick them off," Weddle wrote in his fact sheet on the rose. "The plant grows well in full sun or shade. She will tolerate downpours of rain and come out smiling and beautiful." The strength of the rose amazed him. It grew well in Ohio River Valley humidity, which is hard on roses. He sent bushes to friends in Louisiana, New York State, Washington State and Nagpur, India.

you get into roses, you get to meet a whole bunch of people," Weddle said.) All reported the rose did well. "She'll thrive anywhere in the world where roses can be grown," Weddle said proudly. "Elizabeth Taylor" is also robustly fertile, producing good quantities of seeds that germinate quickly. popular for generations to come, like the "Peace" rose introduced 40 years ago. "She could become a classic," Weddle said.

"One of the most important factors is how well she does in competition on the show tables. If she wins a lot of prizes, her fame will spread. It's like horse racing." Weddle is one of only a few amateur breeders to break into the national rose market. His new variety will be featured in the fall by Kimbrew-Walter Roses, a nursery house in Grand Saline, Texas. It will be available in Canada and the United States through Hortico, of Waterdown, Ontario.

Weddle's father, a railroad man, got him interested in gardening. "Dad always loved flowers," Weddle remembered. "Each year, he had two or three rows of gladioluses and zinnias." Weddle started gardening in the 1940s, around the time Elizabeth Taylor got into movies. Her first starring role came in 1944's "National Velvet," when she was 12. The following year, Weddle also went into the entertainment business.

He started a company that leased jukeboxes and pinball machines. By the early '50s, Weddle was hooked on raising roses, and Taylor was becoming a major Hollywood star with solid performances in "A Place in the Sun" and "The Last Time I Saw Paris." Her career continued to climb with "Giant," "Raintree County," and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." But personal tragedy began to alternate with professional success. Her husband, Mike Todd, was killed in a 1958 plane crash. She was vilified when singer Eddie Fisher left his wife, actress Debbie Reynolds, to marry her, and in 1961 she nearly died of pneumonia in a London hospital. Back in New Albany, Weddle was running his pinball-machine business and helping his wife, Au- 7y Von C.

Weddle: A man of roses. have in the child the most distinctive characteristics of the parents." He said rose lovers are just beginning to get their hands on "Elizabeth Taylor," but enthusiasm for the rose is running high among the members of the American Rose Society. "It could well be a classic," Whitaker added. "One key will be how well it adapts to different climates, and the odds are this rose is going to be highly adaptable." "It's an extremely high-quality rose," said William McMahon, an English professor at Western Kentucky University and a nationally known authority on new roses. "It has all the things exhibitors are looking for beautiful form and very rich color, and it holds its form extremely well." He said one of Weddle's biggest competitors now is a tomato-orange rose called "Dolly Parton" In 1978, Weddle had a serious heart attack and his wife fell and broke her hip.

Their days of 28 THE COURIER-JOURNAL MAGAZINE.