Nature
“What’s in a name? T hat which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet” Act II. Scene II Juliet in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Whether you’re a home gardener or simply a lover of roses, there is little to compare with the sights and perfumed scents of a traditional rose garden in full bloom. The rose has a long and colourful history – according to archaeological evidence its roots, so to speak, go back 35 million years. They are known to have been grown in ancient Babylon and paintings of roses have been discovered in Egyptian pyramid tombs from the 14th century BC. Records exist of them being grown in Chinese and Greek gardens from at least 500 BC. Today there are over 100 species of the genus Rosa and since cultivation began some 5,000 years ago, possibly in China, there are now thousands of varieties. The rose was of great importance to the Romans and was grown extensively throughout the Roman Empire. The petals were used as confetti at celebrations, for medicinal purposes, and as a source of perfume. Although many varieties were brought to England by the Romans, the flower’s popularity waned after the fall of the empire until it was generally just utilised in monasteries. By the early 15th century the English were known to be cultivating roses and its prominence grew during the ‘Wars of the Roses’ 1455–1485, when the rose emblem was chosen by both the houses of York and Lancaster within the design of their heraldic badges. The white and the red rose was used respectively. At that time their colour choice was limited to the European Wild rose which came in white or shades of pink. The red rose used as the emblem of Lancashire is believed to be the Rosa gallica which has a pink colour – not the strong red as we know today. By the 1600s the growing of roses had become very fashionable in England. A hundred years later there was an explosion in its popularity for gardens and decoration. There are three main groupings or classes of roses, which refer to the plants history, how they grow, and their breeding. The Wild (or species) rose has been around for thousands of years and thrived well without any human interference. All but one of these original species has five petals, the exception being the Rosa Sericea. Native to the Himalayas, this rose has only four petals and is generally found growing at altitudes up to 2.5 miles. Old roses, also known as antique or heritage roses are those cultivated before the late 1800s. Modern or hybrid roses are created by taking the best attributes of old rose varieties in order to create new variations. Today the rose is also defined by the number of petals. Those with up to eight petals are known as a single rose, a double is up to 25 and a full rose up to 40 petals. Classification is somewhat equivocal for roses with more than forty petals as some have far more than this, for example the Cabbage rose (Rosa centifolia) having 100 petals.
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However, producing these hybrids doesn’t come cheap. An apricothued rose known as Juliet (Ausjameson) took 15 years to perfect costing £3 million and is the world’s most expensive rose variety. Roses can also be an expensive gift. One of the World's Tallest Rose is grown in Machachi, Ecuador, 2,800 metres (3,062 yards) above sea level in the mountain ranges of the Andes. Each stem measures 1.5 metres (5 feet) and you can expect to pay £500 for just 24 red roses. Like trees, the rose can have a long life. Rosa gallica Growing up the side of Evêque, painted by Redouté a columnar portion of the Hildesheim Cathedral in northern Germany is a variety of rose called Rosa canina. Commonly known as the Dog-rose, it is recorded as the oldest living rose in the world and thought to have been planted in the early 9th century, when the Cathedral was founded. Amazingly, this strong and healthy plant still continues to bud and bloom annually producing pale pink flowers each a year (usually around May) and is around 10 metres (33 feet) high. continued on page 32
The oldest living rose, Hildesheim Cathedral, Northern Germany
