Henry Bennett (rose hybridizer)

He also saw that the cool and damp English climate did not provide enough summer heat to ripen rose hips.

[1] On returning home he built a heated glass house, where he kept his parent rose plants in pots.

This system allowed him to work nearly year-round with Tea roses, and gave him a much longer bloom season with the Hybrid Perpetuals.

Where other British rose hybridizers worked primarily in summer, Bennett's system allowed him to begin cross-pollination in March.

[1] Until the 19th century, rose hybridisation was a spontaneous occurrence, mediated by pollinating insects such as bees, or self-pollination.

Deliberate, controlled pollination of roses to create new varieties was first systematically practised by Empress Josephine's horticulturalist, Andre Dupont, in the early 1800s.

[6] Still, controlled pollination was practised by very few people before Bennett began hybridising roses, inspired by his knowledge of cattle breeding.

Other hybridizers rushed to copy Bennett's system, with controlled pollination and heated glass houses.

Other rose growers followed suit, in the UK first by Paul & Son nursery in 1883, then Hugh Dickson of Belfast in 1884.

'Lady Mary Fitzwilliam', in particular, is in the parentage of tens of thousands of modern hybrid tea roses, starting with Joseph Pernet-Ducher's 'Mme.

John Laing', a pink Hybrid Perpetual, was described by the British horticulturalist Graham Stuart Thomas[8] as "one of the most satisfying roses to grow and cut".