Ralph Moore was born on January 14, 1907. He died on September 14, 2009.
There's a very good biography of Ralph Moore in Jack Harkness's The Makers of Heavenly Roses. Mr. Moore began Sequoia Nursery in 1937.
By the 1960's Ralph Moore had introduced five species roses into his miniature rose breeding lines -- even before his more recent work with mosses, bracteatas and hulthemias. "The Wizard's Words," Jim Delahanty, American Rose, Jan. 2007, p. 23.
[From Gardening with Roses, by Judith McKeon, p. 33:] California hybridizer Ralph Moore is an important contributor to the diversity of miniature roses.
[From The Quest for the Rose, by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix, p. 226:] Ralph Moore has been in the forefront of the development and popularization of Miniature Roses since 1937... he started growing rose seedlings while still at high school in the 1920s. In 1927 he sowed seeds from a huge plant of 'Climbing Cecile Brunner' in the garden next door. One of the seedlings had tiny white flowers on a bush about 90 cm (3 ft.) tall, but there was little interest in Miniatures at this time and that plant was lost... Ralph Moore first saw Rosa rouletti in 1935. Soon after, he bought plants of 'Tom Thumb', raised by de Vink in the Netherlands, and 'Oakington Ruby', raised by Bloom, and his enthusiasm for Miniatures was rekindled. From these roses, Ralph began the breeding programme that is still going strong today.
[Ibid, p. 228:] Ralph himself describes his rose breeding as a joyful journey and adventure... When we visited him we saw roses with petals like oak leaves, with red eyes, picotee edges and stripes... [an interesting discussion of the various types of roses Moore has crossed with, including Mosses which] led to the first yellow-flowered modern Moss, 'Goldmoss', introduced by Moore in 1972.
[From Miniature Roses: Their Care and Cultivation, by Sean McCann, p. 14: In the UK,] only one company, Gregory's of Nottingham, made miniatures a large part of its production, and it dealt mainly with roses originated in California by Ralph Moore.
[Ibid, p. 132:] It was Ralph Moore who began the interest in single-petalled miniatures when he introduced 'Simplex' in 1961; the five petals are white with a golden centre.
[From World Rose News, September 2009, Vol. 21B, p. 30:] On Monday, September 13, 2009 the rose world lost one of its finst champions. Born in Visalia in 1907, a then sleepy hamlet just south of Fresno, California ....
For more information about Ralph Moore, see:
Highlights from the 2002 Rose Catalogs: Sequoia Nursery
The January 2007 issue of American Rose is the Ralph Moore Tribute Issue in celebration of Mr. Moore's 100th birthday.
1973 the Rose Annual UK, page 89
Nigel Raban. The Men Behind the New Roses. Ralph S. Moore.
