[From an advertisement for Melvin E. Wyant, Rose Specialist in Painesville, Ohio, in the
American Rose Annual 1926, p. viii:] offering novelties in Roses as well as the dependable Choice Varieties
1969 American Rose Annualp106. Melvine E. Wyant, Rose Specialist. By Joseph J. Klima, Cleveland, Ohio.
The parents of Melvin E. Wyant, being retired farmers, raised their son in Toledo, Ohio to love nature and the outdoors. Their home faced the Maumee River which was important in the bringing up of their young son. He swam, fished and boated on the muddy river, unafraid of water pollution. Money was earned often times by selling newspapers and fresh fruit grown on the place, to sailors on the ore and coal boats at the docks along the river. The love of water is still important to him. After graduating from high school, he entered Ohio State University in the school of Agriculture, being uncertain as to what phase of agriculture he wished to study. However, seeing the name of "Horticulture" on an office door, he inquired what horticulture was and was shown Bailey's books of peaches and grapes with their marvelous true color illustrations. Back in the "teens" true color like we have at the present time was uncommon. The pictures impressed him enough so that he knew he would like horticulture, in which he graduated in 1918. Things were moving fast in '18, so he was married the day he graduated and left for the Army one week later. After being discharged from the Army, he became a state and federal nursery inspector with territory in Northeastern Ohio; one of the larger nursery sections of the country. He had always liked roses, but from the experience of inspecting some of the rose nurseries of the area, he became so interested in roses that he started his own rose nursery. Some of his relatives advised against it, for they couldn't see paying 75ยข for a field grown, budded rosebush when they could buy their roses at the five and dime store. That reminded him of the first roses he helped his dad plant. How they excavated a bed of 18 to 24 inches deep; the soil was normally a wonderful dark, loamy soil, but the bed was excavated and manure and sand mixed in and then the roses were awaited with great anticipation; and when they came, the little shoe box full of a dozen roses was quite disappointing. Of course, they were tenderly planted and it took a lot of imagination to realize the little blossoms were what the catalog pictured. They had some nice little blooms that summer, but his dad was too cautious in his winter protection with a foot of fresh manure over the bed that winter; it finished the bed of roses. However, in the yard were some wonderful old Hybrid Perpetuals like 'Prince Camille de Rohan,' 'Frau Karl Druschki,' 'Mme. Hardy,' 'High Dickson' and 'George Arends' and other Hybrid Perpetuals that gave a lot of bloom in the spring and a little through the season. Maybe the aunts were right when they said there would be no money in growing fields of roses, so one time to help out in paying the bills, he took a position as a nursery inspector for the whole state of Kentucky. Since some of the family had at one time lived in Kentucky and his mother and father had taken a boat trip down the Ohio River as part of their honeymoon, he thought it would be interesting to see Kentucky and also, take a little boat trip. It was a summer position with a wonderful opportunity of seeing the whole state and to get home weekends to check on rose work. Melvin, Jr. the first child, has always helped out some way with the rose work. In early years it was necessary many times to go to the express office, blacksmith shop or hardware store and even at the age of 12 he made the trips and always safely, but there was a lot less traffic back in those early times. He is still helping to run the place and it has expanded from a few acres and a few thousand roses to fifty acres and approximately one hundred thousand roses per year. Besides living near Lake Erie where he had the privilege of many of its opportunities, he enjoyed winter freighter trips on the high seas. These enabled him to see roses in different parts of the world, and to carry on one of his hobbies, photography. On the first ocean trip he and Mrs. Wyant took into and around the Mediterranean, they passed through a hurricane and were in several other storms, so it was difficult to get Mrs. Wyant to go on ocean trips again. He took a freighter trip around the world and saw interesting roses here and there, but no new cultivars worthy of being included in his long rose list. The Farmer of the Year award was given to father and son for their specialized farm. Different rose societies have given him awards and the Garden Club of America has presented the coveted Jane Richter Medal and Award for outstanding Rose Culture to him. The Erie, Pennsylvania, Rose Society and the Western Reserve Rose Society of Ohio have awarded him a plaque and commendations on 50 years of rose growing.
