Education
Returning to civilian life, he enrolled at Iowa State, receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in 1948, an Mississippi in 1949, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1953 in horticulture and microbiology.
Returning to civilian life, he enrolled at Iowa State, receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in 1948, an Mississippi in 1949, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1953 in horticulture and microbiology.
Buck"s introduction to rose breeding took place when he was a high school student in Rockford, Illinois, where he began a correspondence with the Spanish rose breeder Pedro Dot. He then became a professor at the college. His breeding program was meant to address an ongoing issue: Wild rose species around the world were hardy and disease-free, but bloomed only once per year, and in a limited color range from white to medium pink.
They were also quite large — sometimes 15 feet tall and equally wide.
On the other hand, the hybrid tea roses developed during the 19th and 20th centuries flowered repeatedly on bushes of a manageable size, but were subject to a host of rose diseases and could not survive extremely cold temperatures. The German rose breeder Wilhelm Kordes also contributed to his breeding stock.
Buck described his program in a 1985 speech: "My normal procedure was to grow the seedlings in the greenhouse one year until they got big enough, and plant them out the second spring. The only attention they would get would be water and cultivation.
I didn"t spray for disease." His hybrids combined the best characteristics of both groups.
Buck often named his roses after friends — usually in an indirect way — and also chose names that have been described as reflecting "corn belt rural pleasures" such as "Barn Dance", "Applejack", and "Prairie Sunrise". The commercial trade in his rose cultivars got off to a slow start, since the university had no marketing infrastructure. The cultivars gained momentum during the 1980s and 1990s, along with the ecological movement.
"Carefree Beauty" was one of the first roses to receive Texas Agricultural and Mechanical"s EarthKind designation.
This rose is now grown at the Montreal Botanical Garden, Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, the Chicago Botanic Garden, and the Australian National Botanic Gardens.
After teaching for a few years, he entered the United States Army during World World War II as a member of the 13th Airborne, serving as a teacher and as a paratrooper in the European Theater.