Featured Flower: Rose

Love.  True love, friendship, purity, romance, beauty.  Juliet asks: “Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?”  Perhaps, but few flowers have reached the universal symbolic recognition and resonance of roses.  Their aroma has been used in perfumes for centuries.  Their shape is inviting like a spiral unfolding a deep sensuous mystery.

Roses are perhaps the most common flower used in the floral industry, yet they can be anything but commonplace with colors ranging from white, yellow, peach, pink, coral, red, to even purples and mottled combinations and shades in between.

Red = love, passion

Pink = happiness, friendship, beauty, admiration

Yellow = friendship, joy, remembrance

White = innocent, purity, love at first sight

yellow & orange= passionate thoughts

Peach = let’s get together

(Other, red & white =unity, purple= enchantment and love at first sight)

Rose shapes range from single rows of petals, your classic rose form, to a pom-pom effect.

  

The intensity and fruitiness of their bouquet vary (tea roses tend to be very fragrant) and there are many sizes and some climb and can be used to add height to your landscaping.

  

Roses are bred to have certain characteristics often new breeds are grafted onto old plant rootstock.  They come in thousands of variations and some are even native to this area.

  

(Here you can see a rose hybridizing.  And here you can see the purple rootstock emerging from within the Yellow Peace Rose that was grafted to it.)

Here are some great places to check out roses locally.

• Nevi Brothers wholesale roses in Petalumahttp://www.nevebros.net/
• A great place to get married among the roses is http://www.gardenvalley.com/
• A beautiful place to explore in Sebastopol  http://www.vintagegardens.com/

Be sure to mark your calendar for this year’s Rose Parade in down town Santa Rosa on May 18^th.