Roses have been grown for their beauty as plants and as an economic crop, for cut flowers and for medicinal, edible and cosmetic purposes.  Old roses, rare roses, whether cultivars or wild species, are unique genetic resources of potential value in the present and the future.  They also embody part of our cultural heritage.  We cannot afford to dismiss them casually as of little value in modern times.

Heritage has different meanings, in rose terms, around the world.  It can mean preserving and growing roses bred in your country in the past.  It can mean protecting areas where wild roses grow naturally.  It may involve restoring a garden once-famous for its roses that has been neglected.  It can mean cherishing a single bush that originally came from the other side of the world when a family resettled in a different country.

The Conservation & Heritage Committee of the WFRS was formed to bring together members of the various national Rose Societies who believe in preserving and learning about this precious legacy.  Every three years there is an international Heritage Rose convention organised by a Member Society: the next will be in Belgium in June 2020.  We publish an on-line newsletter twice a year, in March and September.  It is available on this site to anyone one who shares this interest.

Over the next few months we plan to expand the section on this website about on-line sources of information that are of use and interest both to rose enthusiasts and to the general public.  Meanwhile, welcome to our website – and please remember… there is no such thing as a bad rose.

Brigid Quest-Ritson

Download all of the editions of the newsletter of the WFRS Conservation and Heritage Group.