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Romance and Roses go hand in hand.
Roses are the most common flowers to be used to express love.
The fragrance from roses has a mesmerising effect on everyone and especially lovers.
A red rose signifies passion but at the same time a withered red rose means ended love.
A pink rose stands for blooming love between young ones while a black rose shows hatred.
Although many lovers present roses by the dozen in the form of a bunch, a single rose is all that is needed to promise lifelong devotion and romance to the love of your life.
Roses were the favourite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love and passion. Thus it is dubbed as the flower of love and passion.
Venus the Roman “Goddess of Love” is also known as Aphrodite in Greek Mythology. Venus was born of the Sea and the Sky.
Venus was born in the sea and first came to shore at Cyprus, floating on a scallop shell. She was honoured as the Mother of the Roman people. Julius Caesar was said to have linked his lineage to Venus.
Her mortal born son was Aeneas. Aeneas was the founder of the great city of Rome. There are still shrines to Venus existing in the Mediterranean Region to this day. Each year the city of Venice, named for Venus, celebrates the marriage of their city to Venus.
Venus serves as inspiration to many great works of art, including the statue of Venus De Milo in the Louvre and the great painting The Birth of Venus, by Botticelli. It is the Goddess Venus who inspires people to love one another and to celebrate the rites of Marriage. She is also associated with the rites of Spring and Fertility.
The “Goddess of Love” seemed to have created the rose from her tears and the blood of her son Adonis (attacked by a wild boar).
It is also stated in Roman mythology that Harpocrates, the Roman god of silence, was offered a rose by Cupid (son of Venus) to maintain the secrecy of his various love affairs. Harpocrates is depicted with a rose in one hand and his finger on his lips depicting secrecy (the statue to the left is on display in the Louvre Museum). This established rose as a symbol of secrecy.
The term "Sub Rosa" meaning "under the rose" indicates confidentiality.
The old tradition states that whenever people wanted their meetings to be confidential they hung a red rose on the door. In some cases the doors were embellished with a rose indicating that the meetings where held "Sub Rosa”. It is also said that people give their lovers a rose not to mention love but to ask them to keep their affair confidential until the time is right.
Christians have also seen the rose as an important symbol of their faith. Early Roman Catholics strung rose buds together using them in prayer, establishing what is now known as the rosary.
The red rose has been taken by some Christians as a symbol of Mary, mother of Christ, and by others as a symbol of Christ himself: “I am the rose of Sharon” (The Song of Solomon 2:1).
Red colour stands for intense and strong feelings of love and passion and so it is used to symbolise love. From the time Cleopatra filled room two-feet deep with rose petals for the visit of her beloved Marc Anthony to modern lovers offering a single rose to their love, the rose has been a symbol of romance and love. Rose speaks of the heart-felt emotions and expresses love when given to anyone. For years roses have served as the conveyor of feelings for scores of lovers.
Types of Roses
The rose is the most widely cut rose in the world. Roses are basically classified into 5 different types. These are Tea Roses, Floribundas, Shrub roses, Ground Cover roses and Climbers. A brief description of these types is given below.
Tea Roses: Tea roses were popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They were bred primarily in France. These are tall, long-stemmed roses ideal for cutting. They are the Valentine's Day roses you see at the florists. The flowers are usually borne singly, one to a stem, rather than in clusters. I
n the garden they are often featured as single specimens or in a traditional rose cutting garden. Flowering can extend right into winter, with some varieties only pausing in August for a brief rest between flushes.
Tea roses are making a return to favour among local enthusiasts. Their disease resistance and ever blooming habit suit Australian climates better than many modern 'hybrid' teas. The blooms tend to be smaller, though.
Hybrid Teas are by far the most common kind sold today. Of all the rose breeds, the Hybrid Tea has the widest range of colours. They feature high centred blooms on strong stems, usually with one bloom to a stem. In Sydney they flower from mid September through to June.
Hybrid Teas are the favourite of the cut flower industry, with perfection of form and a long life in the vase. The only real drawback is a tendency to disease that can be greater than some alternatives - although many better varieties are disease resistant. Fragrance and bush size vary too.
Floribundas: These were developed during the last century and have the large, showy blossoms of the hybrid teas but bloom more freely, setting clusters of blossoms rather than a single bloom on a stem.
Floribundas are versatile; an individual shrub will fit easily into almost any sunny border planting. However, they are perhaps most striking in mass plantings.
Unfortunately the quality, form and size of the blooms rarely matches those of a hybrid tea. Some floribundas have fragrance, others do not. In Sydney, flowering begins in September and the last flush usually peters out in May.
Shrub Roses: Shrub roses in comparison to traditional varieties of roses are impressive due to features like natural disease resistance, ability to grow in various climates, less attention required, compact growth habit and above all their great beauty.
Ground Cover Roses: These are basically low growing roses that cascade over walls.
These generally do not grow tall and grow to a height of about 1 to 2 feet and around 3 to 4 feet wide.
Climbers: Climbing roses produce long canes that can be trained to a trellis, fence, or other support.
Grow them up and over an arching trellis to make a striking entryway; train them up a lattice to adorn a plain wall.
Climbing roses are great for providing shade from the hot Australian sun.
