The Color of Roses

Introduction


Many people have a strong memory of seeing and smelling their first rose. That’s where this love affair started for me. I remember that day in my grandmother’s garden and the rose—Sutter’s Gold. It had the most beautiful fragrance and form, but, oh, what a color! It was an intriguing golden yellow with sepia undertones and outer petals where distinct veins of melon pink transitioned to russet at the edges. My grandmother was a rosarian, and her love for roses continues to inspire, guide, and encourage my own journey with this elegant flower.

When my husband and I met, we quickly discovered that our shared passion was the garden, and, specifically, the rose garden. Over the next ten years, we created several small personal rose gardens in our homes. When we arrived at our current farm more than thirty years ago, it was clear that we would need dozens of roses for the houses on the property, all built at the turn of the nineteenth century and crying out for romantic shrub roses in all colors of the rainbow.

In 1995, I entered my first rose exhibition. I came home with a few blue ribbons, which as a novice was completely unexpected. Not long after this modest success, visitors began stopping by to see our roses. One of them was a well-respected floral designer. He asked if he could cut a few roses for an arrangement someone had ordered. Rose Story Farm was born.

As we grew the farm, our thinking about rose selection evolved. Blocks of color in various shades and multiple varieties appealed to designers. As we developed our business selling cut flowers to the trade, our rose collection expanded. We now cut from more than 40,000 rose plants for the national floral trade and event design world. We began to host tours and educational seminars emphasizing the simplicity and ease of growing roses. There are a few simple guidelines that begin with the choice of a disease-resistant variety in a desirable color. As we had more visitors, we began to receive requests to design and maintain private gardens. We now maintain a nursery with rose plants that have been carefully curated for our garden clients. The plants we recommend for gardens are all fragrant, all good cutting varieties, and encompass a full range of colors. A primary interest to all our clients (designers, gardeners, and rose enthusiasts) is color and how to choose roses within a desired color palette.

I take heart knowing that roses can be grown just about anywhere. All our children have roses around their homes, from an apartment balcony in Dublin, Ireland, where a single bloom of iceberg planted in a pot is doted on, to a small backyard in Houston, Texas, where a Julia Child rose pumps out the blooms, to Altadena, California, where our daughter and her husband have planted a serious rose garden that is a major focus of their spare time. We have clients across the country growing roses, many with unique challenges. But the challenges come with sweet rewards.

It has been a dream of mine to write a book about roses, sharing my love for these gorgeous beauties and demystifying them for both gardener and flower arranger. A great number of books about roses seem to emphasize their complexities and the difficulties encountered in their cultivation. My experience has been very different, and I appreciate the simple and straightforward nature of their place in our gardens and in our homes. I find roses easy to grow, easy to cut and arrange, and always gratifying.

The purpose of this book is to provide a reference and color guide for those choosing plants for their gardens, designing for a special event, planning for home floral arrangements, or simply dreaming about a future full of roses.