Human Flower Project

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

‘Laura Bush’ Petunia

Offspring of the V.I.P. (Violet in Profusion), this old-fashioned flower has staying power.

Petunia named for the First Lady
(former, of Texas, that is)
Independence, TX, April 6, 2007
Photo: Human Flower Project

Before she moved to Washington, D.C., Laura Bush lived in another white house called the Texas Governor’s Mansion. Her first gig as First Lady was here, after her husband, for reasons still obscure, managed to beat Ann Richards in the 1994 governor’s race. In 2000, still in Austin, Mrs. Bush was honored by a hard-working band of Aggie horticulturists, the mischief making Greg Grant among them. They managed to produce and name for her a tough purple petunia, one that can withstand the state’s withering summers and still bloom, as Dick Cheney would say, “big time.”

We spotted Laura Bush for sale at the Antique Rose Emporium last week, though it’s been on the market since 2000, the year she switched White Houses. ”Cold tolerant, disease resistant and heat tolerant” with “a spreading growth habit”—these are also hallmarks of a winning politician’s spouse.

Is petunia a flower suited to a lame duck? Many would say so. But actually in her second “term” Mrs. Bush had a nobler flower named for her. The Laura Bush rose, selected by the First Lady herself, approximates burnt orange, University of Texas’s loyalty-testing school color. Let’s hope this is a good container plant, as its namesake will be packing up in not too many months.