The Radiant Rose
The rose is possibly the most well-known, easily identified, and most liked flower in the world. Everyone has either smelled, seen, given, or received a rose in their life. It is also the birth flower for the month of June, so to everyone born in June, we would like to wish you the happiest of Birthdays! 💚
🌹When archaeologists discovered the fossil of a rose in Colorado, they learned that roses are more than 35 million years old.
🌹The oldest documented living rose bush is over 1,000 years old, and lives in Germany on the wall of the Cathedral of Hildesheim. It was first mentioned living there in 815 A.D.
🌹The Cathedral of Hildesheim was bombed in 1945 by Allied bombers, but the roots of the rosebush survived and soon pushed out new growth.
🌹According to legend, the city of Hildesheim will continue to be prosperous as long as that one rosebush lives.
🌹Roses were first cultivated in Asia in about 500 B.C.
🌹The tallest rose bush recorded was 23 feet (7 meters) tall.
🌹 The flowers can vary anywhere from 0.5-33 inches (1.25-84 cm) in diameter.
🌹Rose thorns as actually technically “prickles,” which protect the plant, but also help them bind to others (think climbing roses).
🌹There are over 100 species of roses.
🌹There are about 13,000 identified varieties.
🌹The largest documented rose bush in the world spreads out on an arbor, which covers more than 9,000 square feet. This white Lady Banksia rose is located in Tombstone, Arizona, was planted in 1885, and has a trunk that is 12 feet (3.6 meters) in diameter.
🌹In 2006 a man named David Austin sold his Juliet rose, a variety that he spent 15 years breeding, 2006 Chelsea Show for almost $15.8 million USD.
🌹in 2002 a miniature rose called Overnight Scentsation was sent to space to test how low gravity would affect the scent of a rose.
🌹On November 20, 1986 U.S. President Ronald Reagan stood in front of the White House Rose Garden and officially made the rose the national flower emblem of the U.S.
🌹The rose is the state flower for four U.S. states: Georgia, Iowa, New York, and North Dakota.
🌹The first cultivated in Europe were brought from China in the 1700s.
🌹Most roses are deciduous, meaning that they shed their leaves seasonally (i.e. during the cold months), but there are some (mainly types from South East Asia) that are evergreen and keep their leaves year-round.
🌹Roses can produce a fruit called a rose hip, which resembles a berry and can vary in color from red to dark purple to black.
🌹Rose hips, which are high in vitamin C, are commonly used to make into jam, preserves, jelly, marmalade, tea, etc.
🌹The rose hips are also used in minor medicinal treatments.
🌹Rose hips can also be made into a syrup that is used in cooking.
🌹Rose water, which is made using the petals and distilled water, is used for many things, such as cooking, facial toners, hair treatments, etc.
🌹The rose scent that we all know comes from microscopic perfume glands located on the petals.
🌹It takes 2,000 roses to make one gram of rose oil.
🌹85% of the world’s rose oil comes from Rose Valley in Bulgaria.
🌹The family, Rosaceae, were all originally wild plants that grew in NW Africa, North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.
🌹The flowers of wild roses, along with numerous cultivated types, only have five petals per flower.
🌹Rosa sericea is a species that only have four petals per flower.
🌹The rose we commonly think of, which has a larger number of petals, is actually the result of a mutation.
🌹In 1867 a French man by the name Guillot created "La France," the first hybrid tea rose.
🌹Ancient Romans would sometimes wear roses as a necklace, which brought about expression “under the rose,” aka something secret.
🌹Supposedly Cleopatra would cover the floors of her palace with roses before Mark Antony would arrive. It has been said that she did this so that he would think of her whenever he smelled roses.
🌹Ancient Romans were also known to decorate rooms with roses, use them for perfumes, for medicinal purposes, throw petals as confetti during celebrations, and high society woman would apparently use petals as currency as times.
🌹The oldest known painting of a rose was painted in1600 B.C. in Crete, Greece
🌹From 1455-1487 was the English civil war known as The War of The Roses. It was called this both sides used a rose as their symbol, the Yorks used a white rose and the Lancasters used a red rose. The end resulted in the Tudor Rose, which consists of five inner white petals to represent the House of York, and five outer red petals to represent the House of Lancaster.
🌹In 2004 the first “blue” rose was created and named APPLAUSE. It is a beautiful violet/lavender/light blue tint.
🌹There is no such thing as a real black rose, as they are actually such a deep red that they appear black to the naked eye.
🌹Rainbow roses are created by injecting dye, or by allowing the stems to soak up dyed water.
🌹For hundreds of years the rose has been used as a symbol for love, sorrow, or sympathy.
🌹Different colors of roses are said to have different meanings
Red: Love, passion, desire
Pale Pink: Admiration, grace, joy, sweetness
Hot Pink: Gratitude, appreciation, thankfulness
Violet: Wonder, splendor, enchantment, mystery, love at first sight
Burgundy: Beauty
Orange: Desire, energetic, enthusiastic
Peach: Modesty, gratitude, sincerity
Yellow: Friendship, joyful, cheerful, even though during the Victorian times it represented jealousy
White: Purity, innocence
Ivory: Charm, thoughtfulness
Green: Rejuvenation, fertility, opulence
🌹The first rose breeder in the United States was none other than President George Washington. He even named a variety Mary Washington after his mother.
🌹According to Greek mythology, the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, created the rose from the tears she cried over the blood of her love, Adonis. The Roman Goddess of Love, Venus, also had a rose as her symbol.
🌹54% of the land in Ecuador is used to cultivate roses.
🌹84% of the land in Zambia is used for the cultivation of roses.
🌹250 million roses were produced for Valentine’s Day in 2017, according to the Society of American Florists.
🌹Throwing rose leaves into a fire is supposed to bring you good luck, while dropping a rose of the floor brings you back luck.
🌹Placing dried rose petals under your mattress is said to bring romance into your life.
🌹If you’re unsure of which of your lovers you should pick, write their names on rose leaves, place them on water, and the one that sinks first is the one you should choose.
🌹Planting roses by graves is said to protect the person’s soul from evil spirits.
🌹Another, much darker, superstition states that if the petals fall of a rose that you’re holding, then a love one will soon pass away.
We cannot write about roses without quoting Act-II, Scene-II of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By Any Other Name would smell as sweet.
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