Jean-Pierre Vibert

Jean Pierre Vibert (Paris January 31, 1777 – January 18, 1866 Paris) was a French rosarian.

Vibert served as a young man in Napoleon's army. Disabled by war wounds, he turned to gardening, and owned a hardware store. His store was close to the rosarium of Empress Josephine's rose hybridizer, André Dupont, in [the rue du Four in Paris]], from whom he became interested in breeding roses. In 1812 he sold his hardware store. Soon afterwards, in 1813, he purchased land in Chennevières-sur-Marne for a nursery, where he hybridized roses, fruit trees, and grape vines for raisins.

He married Adelaide Charlotte Heu (? – 1816) in 1805, with whom he had three children: Aimée, Adélaide and Théodore.

When the pioneering rose hybridizer Jacques-Louis Descemet (1761–1839) was forced to leave his nursery after invasion by the British following the Battle of Waterloo, Vibert absorbed Descemet's nursery stock, 10,000 rose seedlings, and hybridizing records. A month later, his 5-year-old daughter Adelaide died; his wife Adelaide died a few months afterwards.

Vibert was one of the founders of the Société d'Horticulture de Paris in 1827 (now National Horticultural Society of France). He moved his nursery to St. Denis in January of that year. He moved his nursery again in 1835, to Longjumeau, just south of Paris. And again, in 1839, he moved his nursery, this time to a more southerly climate in Angers.

In 1851 Jean-Pierre Vibert sold his nursery in Angers to his foreman, M. Robert, who in 1867 dedicated to him the cultivar "Souvenir de Pierre Vibert". Vibert retired to the Paris area, where he published articles about roses and grapes.

He died on January 27, 1866, age 88.

He created numerous cultivars, among which were Adèle Heu named after his wife and Aimeé Vibert named after his daughter. He was particularly interested in spotted and striped roses. His hybrids span all the classes in existence at the time, from the once-blooming albas, gallicas and damasks, to the newly introduced chinas, teas and noisettes. He traveled throughout Europe to visit other rosarians, comparing cultivars and distributing new hybrids throughout Europe and to the US. His many articles on rose hybridizing and culture were also of great importance to the development of rose culture.

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