A Rose by Any Other Name

Roses are very much a part of our history as well as our present, and January is the perfect time to plant bare-root roses in our area. But are the roses in our historic neighborhood historic roses?

"Historic" roses are called a variety of things: Heritage Roses, Antique Roses, Heirloom Roses or simply Old Roses. Old Roses come in almost any color, size, fragrance, and form. They are roses with a past and make excellent garden roses, as they are sturdy survivors. They are said to be millions of years older than the human race!

They thrived in the area known historically as the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia, were painted on the walls of Minoan palaces in ancient Crete, and stamped on Greek coins from Rhodes.

The Roman Emperor Nero spent a fortune on roses for his banquets, although he was outdone by the Emperor Heliogabalus, who had a net full of roses hung to shower petals down upon his banquet guests as they reclined on their couches. So many roses had been imported from Egypt for that feast that some guests were actually suffocated!

The term sub rosa comes from the Roman tradition of suspending one rose above a banquet couch to indicate that the conversation would be confidential, a convention that carried into the Middle Ages. Because the early Church associated roses with pagan excess, they fell into disfavor until they were associated with adoration of the Virgin Mary, and their popularity again blossomed.

Josephine Bonaparte loved roses and established a world-renowned collection at her home outside Paris. Here she displayed every species of rose she could get. At the height of the French and British war, the British Admiralty actually granted a pass to a British firm to deliver an order of the new China Roses to Josephine.

Roses appear to have come to this continent with Spanish missionaries, who brought along a rose they called the Rose of Castile for both medicinal and liturgical uses. Thomas Jefferson grew many different types of roses in his personal garden at Monticello.

The first tea roses came from China and appeared in Europe almost 200 years ago. The first Modern Rose was the beautiful golden Soliel d’Or, introduced in France in 1901. In the 50 years from when California was admitted to statehood and 1900, records show that nearly 4,000 different kinds of roses were for sale there.

Here in Long Beach, all that roses need is good sun, amended soil, and water. Check your local nursery or garden store and beautify your home easily and inexpensively.

(November-December, 2007)

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