Viraraghavan's in London

Roses became his passion right through school and college, where he did his Masters in Chemistry. He passed the premier government administrative service, called the Indian Administrative Service (I.A.S., which was the successor to the I.C.S., in independent India) in 1959, and worked in various senior capacities, including Director, and Secretary, Agriculture and Horticulture Departments, Government of Andhra Pradesh, which is a state in central India (capital: Hyderabad). He voluntarily retired after 20 years, in 1980, to concentrate on rose breeding.

He had been growing roses in his various gardens right from 1955 ( both his father and he, being in government service, were subject to transfers from place to place) and from 1965 he began to breed roses.

In 1980, Viru and Girija (born 17th September 1939, Masters in History, and Bachelor in Education) settled in Kodaikanal, a hillstation (220 metres elevation ) to the south of Coonoor and OOty, as Viru felt the climate there was more conducive to rose breeing. Rose breeding aims began by trying to raise roses in unusual colours, and in the 'hand-painted' strain. He has released over 60 roses, some of which have been registered with the IRAR - a few are: 'Sunlit Snow' ('Annapurna), 'Magic East' (Boddhisatwa), 'Coffee Country' (Coorg), 'Nefertiti', 'Orient Silk'(Ahimsa), which is thornless, Orient Spice (Rajni), Southern Sunset (Tamrabarani), Magic Medley.

"Our feeling that we needed to breed roses which would do well in warm climates (India is mostly tropical and sub tropical) was given a fillip when, fortuitously, we learnt of the existence of the only tropical rose species in the world - R. clinophylla (earlier called R. involucrata), which exists in 3 forms, according to the location it is found in, and we have been able to procure all 3 forms. We are still on the hunt for other forms in different places in the country.

"We read about the Indian form of R. gigantea and made an expedition, in 1990, to the north east of India where at Ukhrul, on the Burma border, up a mountain slope (Mount Sirohi) , we found huge specimens of this species. Being January there were no flowers, but we collected seeds and cuttings, and have raised seedlings and now we have literally gigantic specimens scrambling up all our trees. We have been distributing seed to anyone interested.

"We are now concentrating on breeding with R. clinophylla and R. gigantea. We are 5th generation down the line in each case, and have also crossed the 2 species themselves, and have started this line of breeding too. Clinophylla is a water-loving rose, we grow plants in our lily ponds, and gigantea has the hugest sized flowers. Our clinophylla and gigantea seedlings are still under trial, but hopefully in 2005 we will release some."