Dr. James “Jim” Sproul followed an unusual path into professional rose breeding: he trained and worked as a physician while pursuing rose hybridizing for decades as a serious parallel passion. He began raising roses from seed more than 40 years ago and gradually moved from open-pollinated seedlings into planned crosses designed to combine unusual flower traits with healthier garden plants.
Sproul is especially known for his work with Hulthemia-influenced roses, which carry a distinctive dark “eye” or blotch around the center of the flower. After roughly two decades working with this difficult genetic material, his breeding contributed to the Eyeconic® line and helped bring the Hulthemia eye into commercially useful repeat-flowering roses. His other introductions include Brick House® Pink, Sunblaze® Candy, Cherrytini™, PowerPuff Pink®, and other roses combining novelty with improved plant health.
Sproul's work is a strong example of how modern breeding can introduce a visually unusual trait without abandoning practical qualities such as disease resistance, vigor, and repeat flowering.
