英国发现玫瑰网站 Find That Rose – 月季品种与零售苗圃索引站

网站沿革

《发现玫瑰》由英国月季爱好者 Angela Pawsey 在 1983 年创办, 起初是一本薄薄的小册子, 在圣奥尔本斯(St Albans)英国国家玫瑰协会的玫瑰节上发售。那一次契机来自一趟火车, 两位月季业同行 Peter Harkness 和 Mark Mattock(后者于 2018 年 11 月辞世)与 Pawsey 闲聊, 建议她把原本为花展展商做的品种对照表扩成一本面向零售买家的工具册。1983 年版是英国第一本以”按品种找供货商”为思路的园艺工具书, 头一年售价仅 25 便士, 配一只大号贴足邮票的信封就能买到。

从 1983 年起, 这本小册子每年更新一次, 一直出到第 38 版, 覆盖 2020 年秋至 2021 年夏这一季。第 38 版之后, 因为印刷、邮寄等成本不断上涨, 纸质本停刊, 全部内容改在 findthatrose.co.uk 上以网站形式继续更新。网站最早注册在 findthatrose.net, 之后才换成现在的 .co.uk 域名, 以便一眼看出这是英国本地的资源站。

收录结构

网站主体由两个索引组成: A to Z of Roses 按品种名排列, 列出每一种月季在当季由哪些英国苗圃供应, 同时给出培育年份、株型分类、花色编号、香味等级; A to Z of Growers 则按供货商名称排列, 每家附上联系方式、网站、地址、可供应的品种范围, 以及最近一次更新品种清单的季次。两个索引用三位字母加一位数字的代码互相串联, 数字那一位标出苗圃类型(零售为主、批发为主、仅供货给花园中心等)。

每一品种条目会标出商品名(贸易名)以及, 若已知, 国际登记名; 多数现代月季有这两个名字, 按规定零售时两者都要出现在标签上。颜色用编号代表基本色调, “L”代表奶黄/象牙, “P”代表深粉/浅红, 复合色用斜杠或加号区分; 香味用图形符号分级, 从”无香”到”浓香”分五档。31 版起, 还把品种的引种年份加在了名字后面, 方便对照老照片和老花园记录。

编辑与运营

网站由 Angela Pawsey 一人长期编辑, 几乎全部内容来自她与英国本地苗圃的逐家通信: 每年秋末她向所有在册苗圃寄出表格, 请他们提交当季实际能供应的品种清单, 然后在冬季统一整理上线。她不收苗圃任何费用, 也不从销售中提成, 站点顶部长期挂着”如果你是英国本土月季种植者, 想被收录请通过联系表单联系”的告示。

在她看来, 苗圃才是网站真正的支撑者: 一棵商品月季从年初栽种、当年夏季芽接, 到次年秋天才起苗出圃, 中间还有品种权费、人工、防病等开销, 一旦卖不掉或种坏了, 苗圃仍要照付权利金。所以她在站上多次呼吁英国买家优先从本土小苗圃买苗, 不要被报纸上按颜色而非按名字卖的低质裸根苗吸引。2017 年 5 月英国国家玫瑰协会解散后, 她还在首页单独留了一段介绍继任组织 The Rose Society UK(英国玫瑰学会), 因为那是当时少数还在做品种评选、办月季展和出版季刊的公益机构。

行业意义

作为英国第一本”找苗圃”工具书, 《发现玫瑰》填了一个长期空白: 在它出现之前, 英国园丁要查某个月季品种由谁供货, 基本只能靠口口相传或翻阅 RHS 月季手册; 而 RHS 手册只列品种名与简单描述, 不对接销售渠道。Pawsey 的小册子用一种笨办法——把每个品种的供货商用三字母代码钉在边上——解决了”我想买 X, 去哪儿买”这个最朴素的问题, 也顺便给小型家庭苗圃一个不靠广告就能被找到的窗口。

在线版本延续了这个思路: 即便每季都有上百个品种暂时找不到供货商, 名字仍然留在表里, 因为下一季更新时常有”失而复得”的情况。她把这个特点也写进了站点说明, 用以提醒买家, 在搜索引擎上查到一个名字并不等于英国本地有售, 也不等于现在还在生产。

访问与使用

网站对公众完全免费, 不要求注册账号, 也不投放第三方广告或联盟链接, 维护费用主要靠 Pawsey 自掏腰包和少量定向捐助。访客进入首页后, 可以先在 “A to Z of Roses” 里按品种名查到供货商代码, 再切换到 “A to Z of Growers” 查代码对应的苗圃联系方式; 没有点击跳转, 是为了让用户自行比较不同苗圃的价格、规格和起订量。

除两个主索引外, 站点还保留了几十年来纸质本里的两个固定栏目: “A Rose Named Just For You”(按基督教人名找月季)和 “Roses for That Special Person or Event”(为特定人物或场合选花), 都可以通过首页上的 “Interesting Information” 入口进入。新一季的供货商名单通常在每年 10 月底裸根苗季开始前更新, 之后每月小补一次, 整个销售季一直持续到次年 3 月左右。

官网: https://www.findthatrose.co.uk/

Website History

Find That Rose was started in 1983 by British rose enthusiast Angela Pawsey, originally as a slim booklet sold at the National Rose Festival in St Albans, home of the (now defunct) Royal National Rose Society. The idea came from a train journey, when two fellow rosarians, Peter Harkness and the late Mark Mattock (who died in November 2018), suggested that Pawsey expand the festival’s grower-to-variety crib sheet into a tool for retail buyers. The first 1983 edition was the United Kingdom’s first horticultural “finder” book, priced at 25p, and shipped to readers who enclosed a large stamped envelope.

The booklet was updated every year for 38 editions, the last of which covered the Autumn 2020 to Summer 2021 season. After the 38th edition, rising printing and postage costs made the printed version unviable, and the full content moved to findthatrose.co.uk. The site was originally registered as findthatrose.net; the switch to the .co.uk domain makes the site’s UK base immediately obvious to visitors.

Coverage Structure

The site is built around two parallel indexes. A to Z of Roses lists each rose variety alphabetically, with the UK nurseries currently offering it for sale, the year of introduction, plant classification, basic colour code and fragrance grade. A to Z of Growers is sorted by nursery name, and includes contact details, website, location, supplied varieties and the most recent season for which a list was submitted. The two indexes are tied together with a three-letter-plus-one-digit grower code, the trailing digit indicating whether the grower supplies mainly retail, mainly wholesale, or only garden centres.

Each variety entry shows the selling (trade) name, and where known, the international registered name. Most modern roses have both, and by law the registered name must appear next to the selling name on retail labels. Colour is expressed as a number representing the basic hue (with bi-colours shown as two numbers separated by a slash and blends with a plus sign), and fragrance is shown as a symbol ranging from “no detectable scent” to “very fragrant”. From the 31st edition onwards, the year of introduction was added in brackets after each variety name.

Editor and Operations

The site is edited long-term by Angela Pawsey on her own. Almost all content comes from her annual round of correspondence with UK growers: each autumn she sends a form to every listed nursery asking for the varieties they will actually be able to supply in the coming bare-root season, and over the winter she collates the replies and updates the site. There is no charge for inclusion and no commission on sales; a standing note at the top of the homepage invites any UK rose grower who can supply a proper list to get in touch via the contact form.

Pawsey is clear that the small UK nurseries are the real backbone of the project. A commercial rose is planted in January to March, budded that summer, and only lifted the following autumn, with breeders’ rights royalties, labour and disease control along the way, so a crop that fails or fails to sell still costs the nursery the royalty. She uses the homepage to ask British buyers to support those small growers in particular, and to be wary of newspaper adverts that sell bare-root roses by colour rather than by name. After the Royal National Rose Society closed in May 2017, she also added a short block on the homepage pointing readers to its successor, The Rose Society UK, the small charity that now runs the UK rose trials, the rose shows and a quarterly magazine.

Industry Significance

As the United Kingdom’s first “rose finder” book, Find That Rose filled a long-standing gap. Before it appeared, a British gardener who wanted a particular named rose had little to go on beyond word of mouth or the RHS rose register, and the register only listed variety names and brief descriptions, not retail sources. Pawsey’s booklet tackled the simplest of questions (I want rose X, where can I buy it?) with a deliberately low-tech solution: pin every supplying grower’s three-letter code next to every variety. The same approach gave small family nurseries a way to be found without paying for advertising.

The online edition preserves that approach: even when a variety temporarily has no UK supplier, the name is left in the list, because varieties often “come back” the following season. Pawsey writes about this directly on the homepage, using it to remind buyers that finding a name on a general search engine does not mean the variety is in commerce in the UK, or that it is still being produced at all.

Access and Use

The site is free to use, requires no account, and carries no third-party advertising or affiliate links. Running costs are covered mostly out of Pawsey’s own pocket, with occasional small donations. Visitors usually start in A to Z of Roses, note the grower codes for the varieties they want, and then look those codes up in A to Z of Growers to get in touch. There is no click-through from the rose index to the grower index, by design, so that buyers can compare nurseries on price, specification and minimum order before contacting anyone.

Two long-running features from the printed booklet are still kept on the site: A Rose Named Just For You (roses carrying a particular Christian name, sometimes hidden) and Roses for That Special Person or Event. Both are linked from the Interesting Information page. The main grower list is usually refreshed just before the bare-root season starts in late October, with smaller updates through the season, which then runs to roughly the following March.

Official Site: https://www.findthatrose.co.uk/