There is a message thread on the Garden Web Antique Rose forum about how Jackson & Perkins is faking the photos in their catalog. The photo shown there is particularly deceitful, and it bears no resemblance to what a gardener can expect from the rose if they grow it in their garden. After seeing this, I spent a little while on the J&P web site to see how many other fake photos I could find.
My grandson's favorite thing right now is hunting for objects on the pages of "I Spy" books. For this Friday's Flowers, I offer my own version of "I Spy", using Jackson & Perkins' catalog photos. How many fake flowers can you find in each photo? Remember, sometimes the flower is flipped, and it may be resized. Every time I look at these, I see ones that I didn't see the last time.
(All of the photos in this post came directly from the Jackson & Perkins web site. They are not altered by me in any way.)
This Double Delight tree rose is a really good example of some very crude 'enhancement'. How many flowers can you find that are identical to each other?
Here's Happy Chappy. More roses 'stamped' here and there to create the illusion of wall-to-wall flowers.
Ditto. How about this 'cluster' of flowers on Social Climber.
Is this 'supposed' view of Ingrid Bergman fooling anyone?
I hardly know where to start with this one of Lavender Simplicity.
How about High Society on an arch? It looks like these roses were cut out with Kindergarten scissors and glued on with school paste.
Doesn't it look like someone stuck a bouquet of florist roses on this Victorian Trellis? Some of the stems aren't even attached to anything.
Flowers from top to bottom, neatly arranged growing vertically on an arch? Fiction! Notice how every one of them faces the "camera" angle ... there are none on the 'back side' of the arrangement. Make no mistake, it is an arrangement.
Speaking of arrangements, look how the same image of a pink rose was used over and over in this arrangement.
Here are their Bulb Gardens, currently on clearance. Never mind the fact that tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and muscari do not bloom at the same time ... you will see as you look at the next few photos, they used the same flower images in each arrangement. Fake, fake, fake.
I'll leave you this Friday with an image that I found particularly disturbing.
For $19.95 (3 for $54.93, or 6 for $104.94) Jackson & Perkins will sell you a 3-inch pot of Japanese Honeysuckle. This is the very same Japanese Honeysuckle that is choking the countryside and invading our gardens. I wish I could tell you how much of this scourge I grubbed out as we cleared our neglected property to design the gardens.
This should be illegal. Is there someone I can report it to?
(written by Hartwood Roses. Hartwood Roses blog.)