Rose

The History of the Rose

Fossils tell us that roses have existed as long as 35 million years ago, and they’ve been cultivated around the world for at least 5,000 years. Today almost all of the 1.5 billion roses that are bought in the US each year come from Colombia or Ecuador. [3]

There are tea roses from China, Bourbon roses from France, and of course, there’s the American Beauty variety. It’s the official flower of the District of Columbia as well as the name of a Grateful Dead album and an Academy Award-winning movie.

Rose is the birth month flower of June, but its sales really peak in the US around Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.

The Rose Parade is an American New Year’s Day tradition in Pasadena, California. Since 1890, organizations have decorated themed parade floats using hundreds of thousands of roses.

If that sounds excessive, the Romans have it beat. Legend tells that the emperor Nero would rain down tons of rose petals during banquets. Cleopatra is rumored to have wooed the Roman general Mark Antony in part by filling her palace with rose petals and announcing her arrival by ship with sails soaked in fragrant rose water.

As Cleopatra knew, roses are used for far more than just decoration. Rosehip tea is an excellent source of vitamin C. Rosewater is an essential ingredient in lots of Middle Eastern pastries like baklava and halva. Rose oil is a crucial ingredient in some of the world’s most lux fragrances, from brands like Dior, Balenciaga, and Prada.

The unforgettable scent of roses is due to the fact that each flower might produce dozens of unique scent molecules, says ecologist Stephen Buchmann in his book, The Reason for Flowers. But rose breeders tend to focus on developing new colors or increasing bloom longevity, not creating new fragrance combinations, and so there are also completely unscented roses like the Leonidas.

From the early 20th-century standard, “My Wild Irish Rose” to Bon Jovi’s ballad “Bed of Roses,” there are almost as many rose-related songs as there are varieties of the flower. For melancholy country fans, there’s George Jackson’s “A Good Year for the Roses,” and for the melancholy metalhead, there’s Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.”

Bobby Darin’s 1962 hit “Eighteen Yellow Roses” sounds like it might be the exception to the idea that roses represent infidelity, but listen closely to the lyrics. In the song, a father intercepts a flower delivery for his daughter from a boy whose note reads, “Though you belong to another, I love you anyway.” Hmm… it sounds like some romance was happening sub rosa.

There are a couple hundred different varieties of roses and thousands of cultivars, from shrub roses to miniature roses to dwarf roses to ground-cover roses. Botanists are developing new types of roses all the time, chasing fuller, longer-lasting blooms in ever more striking hues.

Honestly, we’re kind of unsure where to even start talking about the biology of roses because there’s so much to say! So let’s focus on the hybrid tea rose, the world’s most popular variety in gardens and florist shops alike. There are still dozens and dozens of types of hybrid tea roses, but they share a lot of common characteristics.

Hybrid tea roses are a type of bush rose that develops single blooms on strong stems. They’re available in every color but black and blue, and they usually have that distinctive fragrance that makes roses so valuable in cosmetics and perfumes.

They bloom over and over throughout peak season, so they’re great options for a cutting garden. Just be sure to pick a version that works well with your USDA plant hardiness zone and humidity levels.

One of the reasons hybrid tea roses are so popular is because of their long stems. But one of the reasons they’re not the most gorgeous shrub in the garden is because of their long stems. They can look kind of gawky, if we’re honest. We’re not here to judge, but low-growing, super leafy plants will camouflage leggy rose bushes.

Rose enthusiasts have a reputation for fussiness, and there’s some truth to the stereotype. If you’re the kind of person who likes to experiment and geek out about things like soil pH, propagation techniques, and winterizing strategies, you’ll have a hobby to keep you happy for years and plenty of fellow gardeners to talk shop with.

If you want beautiful blooms with minimal fuss (um, sounds good to us!), chances are that a botanist somewhere has developed a hybrid rose for you, too.

Talk to an expert at your local nursery or extension service before you get started. They’ll know what hybrids have the best shot at success in your climate and on your property. Just be honest about how much time and effort you’re willing to put into this project. Not everyone has a green thumb, and for us, there are florists.

And remember, one of the reasons that roses have such a long history and a vast vocabulary of meanings is because they take time, attention, and care to thrive. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry writes in The Little Prince, “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

There’s no big secret to keeping cut roses fresh, even for as long as two weeks. In fact, the roses you picked up might have been cut in Central America two months ago and stored in a temperature-controlled environment until shipped to the States.

Once you bring your roses home, remove leaves that would be below the waterline of your vase or container. Have the vase ready with a mixture of room temperature water and a packet of floral preservative. Use sharp pruners to cut the stems at an angle; scissors can mash the woody stems and make it hard for them to take up water. Even if you plan to use the roses in an arrangement with other flowers, it’s good to keep them hydrated while you work.

If your roses have thick outside petals (florists call this the shipping leaf or guard petals because they protect the delicate inner petals), you can carefully take those off.

Some florists swear by a one-to-one mixture of Sprite or 7-Up and water to increase longevity. Some say you should add a couple of drops of bleach to the water. Some say that both of these tips are totally bunk. See what your own florist advises, or experiment until you figure out what seems to work best for you.

Some fruits and veggies give off ethylene gas as they ripen, and some are sensitive to ethylene. (That’s why you should keep ethylene producers like bananas and stone fruits away from ethylene-sensitive fruits like apples and potatoes.) Most flowers do best when kept away from ethylene producers, so banish the fruit bowl to a different corner of the house!

If you have room in the fridge or even a garage or basement that’s a few degrees cooler than your home, store them there overnight. That should help keep your roses looking fab for a few extra days. [5]

Beyond that, the usual advice about keeping cut flowers fresh applies to roses, too: change the water and recut the stems every other day, and keep your roses away from direct sunlight will fade and dry out the blooms.