Good morning and welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging!
Livin' Easy Rose
It's Valentine's Day and not only is it the day of boxed chocolates, candy hearts, and cupid's arrow but it's also the day marked on the gardening calendar as a reminder that it's time to prune the garden's most beautiful flower, the rose. Could the date be any more fortuitous? Well at least for those of us living in Central Texas anyway!
Join me below the orange fleur-de-not-a-rose for more about civilization's most beloved and time-honored flower:
History of Roses
Throughout the history of mankind, people from around the world have held the rose close to their hearts. The earliest known flower gardening included roses planted along the travel routes of early nomads. Roses are known to have flourished 35 million-years ago; fossilized rose hips have been found in Europe and petrified rose wreaths have been unearthed from ancient Egyptian tombs.
Ancient Historic Period
- The sadistic Roman emperor Nero dumped tons of rose petals on his dinner guests. Whether it was to suffocate them or mask their stench remains unclear.
- Cleopatra filled her living quarters with rose petals so that Marc Antony would be intoxicated by her opulence and beauty and forever remember his love whenever he was graced with the fragrance of a rose.
- References to the rose are found in Christian architecture and literature as well as ancient Confucian and Buddhist religious texts. Shakespeare gave the ill-fated Juliet the immortal words "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
- The Romans cultivated a beautiful rose and named it Rosa Gallica. Newly married couples were often crowned with roses.
- The War of the Roses led to the golden reign of the Tudors in England. The House of York adopted a white rose as their heraldic symbol while the House of Lancaster took a red rose as theirs. The victor of the civil war, Henry VII, merged his Lancastrian rose with the red rose of his York bride and created the Tudor Rose. It's also known as the "Rose of England" but is not to be confused with the contemporary but sadly legendary England's Rose.
The Modern Period
The era of modern roses was established in 1867 with the introduction of the first hybrid tea rose "La France" by the French breeder Guillot. This variety was considered unique for a number of important horticultural reasons:
1) Hybrid tea roses possess the general habit of a hybrid perpetual rose
2) Elegantly shaped buds
3) Free flowering character of a tea rose
Renewed interest in garden roses was generated in the 19th century by Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. Her dream was to establish a rose garden encompassing a collection of all the known roses of the world.
By the late 20th century more than 10,000 hybrid tea roses have been successfully bred throughout the world.
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Nearly Wild
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Rose Facts
Rose hips are the fruit of the rose plant and contain high amounts of vitamin C as well as trace amounts of vitamins A and B. They are considered one of the richest plant sources of vitamin C.
The Juliet rose was introduced in 2006 by renowned rose breeder David Austin. It took over 15 years and $5 million to develop. The popular rose has an apricot hue and a very light, sensual fragrance. When opened the flowers reveal a tidy array of petals nestled within the folds in the center of the bloom.
A true black rose does not exist although there are a few species that come close. The Turkish Halfeti rose, also known as "The Black Rose of Turkey", is an extremely rare breed that appears pitch-black to the naked eye but upon closer inspection is revealed to be a dark reddish-crimson.
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Chicago Peace
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I could go on and on and on but I'll leave it there. Hopefully y'all enjoyed this quick trip through a small portion of the wonderful world of roses. As always, visitors and stragglers are welcome to stop and smell mankind's most treasured flower but be wary the thorns!