Madame Hardy |
Madame Hardy was known to be a special rose from the beginning. Her breeder, Monsieur Jules-Alexandre Hardy, was the Superintendent of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris and an acknowledged expert on fruit trees, dabbling in roses on the side. Some references, including Michael Pollan in Second Nature, a Gardener's Education, state that Monsieur Hardy was the head gardener for the Empress Josephine's rose collections at Malmaison, but the timing seems a bit off to me since Monsieur Hardy was born in 1787 and would only have been 25 years old by the time Josephine died in 1812. All sources agree that Monsieur Hardy named this rose after his own wife, a testament to his devotion for eternity, and if that was his intention, he couldn't have chosen better. One source states that the original name for this rose, after his wife, was 'Félicité Hardy', while another source gives the wife's name as Marie-Thérèse Pezard, but regardless, the rose has come to us down the ages as 'Madame Hardy'. According to Alex Pankhurst, in Who Does Your Garden Grow?, "by 1885 there were over six thousand varieties of rose available....that year a French rose journal recommended 'Madame Hardy' as one of the best..." More recently, the celebrated British rose expert, Graham Thomas, wrote, “This variety is still unsurpassed by any rose.”
Alas, for all rose fanatics, Madame Hardy remains chaste in the garden and won't form hips or contribute pollen to other roses. She would have undoubtedly been a great source for breeding a line of fantastic modern roses, but leaves us with no rivals, only her own beauty to be admired.