Pink Peace

This rose's location in the garden is NE 1.
  • Classification:   Hybrid Tea
  • Flower Color:   medium pink
  • Flower Size:    4.5 - 6 inches
  • Flower Form:  cupped
  • Petal Count:  58
  • Fragrance:  intense tea
  • Repeat Bloomer:  yes
  • Foliage:  leathery
  • Plant Height:  3-5 feet
  • Plant Width:   3-4 feet
  • Growth Habit:  vigorous, tall
  • Disease Resistant:  no
  • Hybridizer:  Francis Meilland (France)
  • Registered:  1959
  • Parentage:  (‘Peace x Monique’) x (‘Peace’ x ‘Mrs. John Laing’)
  • ARS* Rating:  7.7  (a good rose)
    *American Rose Society Rating

Awards:
  • 1959 Gold Medal Geneva
  • 1959 Gold Medal Rome

Notes:
  • ‘Pink Peace’ is a cultivar of the popular ‘Peace Rose’ and it’s legendary history.

  • “The ‘Peace’ rose, the most popular rose in the world, blossomed out of World War II. At first known simply as Number 3-35-40, the ‘Peace’ rose was created by French hybridizer Francis Meilland of the Meilland rose-breeding family in Lyon. In 1935 he crossed-pollinated two roses, but achieved mediocre results. He did not discard the resulting hybrid tea rose, however, and by 1936, the plant began to show promise, bearing lush green foliage and large ivory-yellow blooms tinged with pink…Meilland introduced this rose to French gardeners in 1942, Italy and Germany but World War II made Meilland’s aim to introduce it to the rest of the horticultural world increasingly unlikely. So, Meilland sent bud wood to the United States on one of the last planes out of his country. In America, Robert Pyle of the Conard-Pyle Company in West Grove, Pennsylvania, propagated the bud wood and sent samples of the plant to the American Rose Society for review. When the Nazi’s left France, Pyle was able to inform Meilland that he would introduce the rose to the public at the war’s end.” --- Patrice Crowley (America in WWII, “Victory’s Flower: The Peace Rose”).

  •  “…known as ‘Peace’. In early 1945 rose grower Meilland wrote to Field Marshall Alan Brooke to thank him for his part in the liberation of France and ask if Brooke would give his name to the rose. Brooke declined saying that, though he was honored to be asked, his name would soon be forgotten and a much better and more enduring name would be ‘Peace’.”

  • The adoption of the trade name ‘Peace’ was publicly announced in the United States on 29 April 1945 by the introducers, Conard Pyle Co. This was the very day that Berlin fell, a day considered a turning point in the Second World War in Europe. Later that year ‘Peace’ roses were given to each of the delegations at the inaugural meeting of the United Nations in San Francisco…”  ---  (Wilkipedia, “Rosa ‘Peace’”) retrieved January 2021.

  • Other cultivars of ‘Peace’ are ‘Chicago Peace’, ‘Garden Party’, ‘Super Star’, and ‘Pullman Orient Express’ to name a few.