{"id":56,"date":"2007-07-23T04:16:51","date_gmt":"2007-07-23T12:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=56"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:25","slug":"military-airs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/military-airs\/","title":{"rendered":"Military Airs"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILITARY AIRS
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 July is full of long sticky days, summer vacations and enticing specials on fall-planted bulbs like tulips and daffodils.\u00a0 I was hot on the trail of those discounts the other day, flipping through the pages of the Old House Gardens catalog, when I noticed an arresting antique tulip called General Ney.\u00a0 It is hard to tell General Ney’s true colors from the catalog photo, but the flowers appear to be a deep red with brownish overtones.\u00a0 As befits a high-ranking officer, the general stands tall at eighteen to twenty inches high.\u00a0 The catalog copy mentions that the tulip was named after a French military leader whom Napoleon called “the bravest of the brave.”\u009d<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The tulip General Ney was introduced in 1837, twenty-two years after its namesake’s death.\u00a0 The name was probably bestowed on the handsome flower by a Bonapartist breeder pining for the deceased emperor’s glory days.\u00a0 Ney himself was prone to both bravery and foolishness as well as somewhat shifting loyalties, but at the end of Napoleon’s \u00a0career, Ney was on Emperor’s side.\u00a0 This may have been a mixed blessing, as Ney’s errors in command were allegedly part of the reason for the French defeat at Waterloo.\u00a0 Eventually captured by the monarchist Bourbons, he was executed for treason in 1815.\u00a0 Some accounts say that Ney lived up to his reputation for bravery by giving the final go-ahead signal to his own firing squad.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

A history like that is a lot to load onto one tulip.\u00a0 However, Ney is not the only general to be honored with an eponymous flower.\u00a0 General De Wet, a scented orange tulip, appears right next to General Ney on the catalog page.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The General De Wet tulip is named for Christiaan De Wet, a hero of South Africa’s Boer War.\u00a0 A master of guerilla warfare, De Wet played a leading role in the victory of the Boer or Dutch South African forces over the British in the very first years of the twentieth century.\u00a0 General De Wet’s namesake tulip was introduced in 1904, just two years after the signing of the peace treaty that ended the Boer War and the release of Three Years War<\/em>, De Wet’s book about the conflict.\u00a0 Like plant breeders of every nationality, the Dutch loved to name promising new cultivars after their prominent countrymen and women.\u00a0 De Wet was a natural for such an honor, and since he did not die until nineteen twenty-two, he may have even seen his namesake tulip. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While a few tulips bear the names of prominent military men, you could fill an entire large garden full of roses with martial names.\u00a0 The very helpful <\/font><\/font>www.helpmefind.com\/roses<\/font><\/a> website lists at least fifty rose varieties that start with the word “general”\u009d.\u00a0 Many of those generals are long-forgotten European military luminaries, but a few Americans also stand out in the crowded field.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Patriotic Americans will be happy to know that there have been at least two General Washington roses.\u00a0 One is a big red hybrid perpetual rose, bred in France and introduced in 1860.\u00a0 The other, a red American tea rose introduced in 1855, was bred by the little known C.G. Page.\u00a0 Only the hybrid perpetual General Washington rose remains available today.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 General Robert E. Lee was a yellow-apricot tea rose introduced in 1896.\u00a0 Though General Lee may still exist in some old gardens, the rose is no longer commercially available.\u00a0 The general’s name also lives on today in a red-flowering azalea, which is one of the “Confederate Series”\u009d of azaleas bred by Tom Dodd III of the Dodd & Dodd Native Nurseries in Semmes, Alabama.\u00a0 The Confederate Series also includes a number of hybrids named after notable southern historical figures including military leaders like General Thomas J. “Stonewall”\u009d Jackson.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another general, John “Black Jack”\u009d Pershing, whose official title was “General of the Armies of the United States,”\u009d had a large-flowered, pink climbing rose named after him.\u00a0 Pershing, who was Commander of the American forces in Europe during World War I, was honored with the rose in 1917, as the Great War was coming to a close.\u00a0 The American breeder, Frederick Undritz, created several other new roses–Victory, Freedom and Silver Star–to commemorate the United States’ role in the military victory.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My 1947 edition of the Wayside Gardens catalog lists Douglas MacArthur, a pink or coral blend hybrid tea rose, introduced in 1943 by California breeder Frederick Huber Howard.\u00a0 General MacArthur, a larger-than-life and often controversial military leader, accepted the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, oversaw the occupation of Japan after the war and commanded the United Nations forces in Korea until President Truman relieved him of duty in 1951.\u00a0 It is perhaps fitting, given the general’s drive and ambition, that there is also a Climbing Douglas MacArthur rose.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many of the roses and other flowering plants named after great warriors of the past have been lost to commerce.\u00a0 It is both ironic and gratifying that the rose that outdistanced all those generals to remain among the most popular in the world is universally known as “Peace”\u009d.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MILITARY AIRS \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 July is full of long sticky days, summer vacations and enticing specials on fall-planted bulbs like tulips and daffodils.\u00a0 I was hot on the trail of those discounts the other day, flipping through the pages of the Old House Gardens catalog, when I noticed an arresting antique tulip called General Ney.\u00a0 It … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1722,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/1722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}