Lemon Zen is a cheerful Noisette rose initially developed by John Starnes around 1990. John lived in Denver and was a frequent visitor to the nursery all the way back to the 1980’s. I first met him as teenager and let’s just say John had a personality you would never forget. His eccentricity served him well as a rose breeder. Lemon Zen is curious cross between R. moschata and the David Austin rose Graham Thomas. The flowers are beautifully single with pronounced stamens and a mysterious cinnamon tinged fragrance.
What I love most about this rose is that both John and I though this rose was lost. Hybridizing roses can be a flummoxing endeavor. Even for the seasoned hybridizer, plants come and go. In the 1990’s, when John moved to Florida, he had to leave a number of his roses behind. About the same time, High Country Roses was also on the move to be run by my sister Heather in Jensen, UT. Again, a number of roses were left behind. It wasn’t until we moved back to Denver in 2011 that we even had an inkling that the rose still existed.
During the move to Denver, I found a group of unlabeled nursery stock plants. Someone had written “Starnes” on the side of one of the pots and taken good care of the plant for almost 20 years without knowing exactly what it was. The rose was a great grower in the greenhouse and I figured it was worth giving John a call to try and figure the mystery out. It took exactly one glimpse of Lemon Zen’s blooms for John to know exactly what we had found. John’s emotional reaction to just knowing the rose still existed gave me clear insight into the importance of a rose to it’s hybridizer. I was certainly grateful to share the moment with John.
John Starnes sadly passed away unexpectedly in 2019, but many of his hybrids live on. Roses have a funny, almost timeless, way of memorializing their creator. Every time we propagate one of Johns roses, or I see another majestic truss of blooms, I’m reminded of the man behind the rose.
See all of our John Starnes roses HERE.
John’s rose blog still exists and you can read his own description of Lemon Zen HERE.
Disclaimer: All rose stories are dependent on my personal recollections, which get hazier with time, and any corrections or updates are welcome.
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