Roses are the oldest and most popular among all the flowers. Ever since one can remember, roses have been popular among all age groups. From men and women, young and old, rich and poor, just about everyone is fascinated by the rose. They come in many colours and each colour says something. Roses are ancient symbols of love and beauty. The rose was sacred to a number of goddesses, which also includes Isis and Aphrodite. Rose is often used as a symbol of the Virgin Mary. Roses are so important that the word means pink or red in a variety of romance languages such as Greek and Polish.
Colour Significations
As mentioned, rose comes in a variety of colours and each colour symbolises some emotion or the other. Below is a list of the colours and the emotions they signify.
- Red - love
- Dark Pink - gratitude
- White - innocence, secrecy, reverence, purity, friendship, and humility
- Yellow - It generally means platonic love or dying love. However, in German speaking countries, it means infidelity and jealousy
- Orange - passion
- Blue - mystery
- Black - slavish devotion
- Pink - gentle feelings of love, grace
- Light Pink - sympathy, admiration
- Yellow with red tips - falling in love, friendship
- Burgundy - beauty
- Green - calm
- Purple - protection (paternal or maternal love)
There are many different species of roses that are cultivated. Roses thrive well in temperate climates, though certain species and cultivars can flourish in sub-tropical and even tropical climates, especially when grafted onto appropriate root-stock. Roses are one of the most popular garden shrubs of all times and are also among the most common flowers sold by florists all over the world. Roses are of great economic importance both for use in perfumes and as a crop for florists' use. The different types are as follows;
- Wild Roses: The different species of wild roses and some of their hybrids are Rosa canina, Rosa dumalis, Rosa eglanteria, Rosa gallica, Rosa gigantea, Rosa glauca, Rosa laevigata, Rosa multiflora, Rosa persica, Rosa roxburghii, Rosa rugosa, Rosa stellata, and Rosa virginiana.
- Old Garden Roses: Some of these are Alba, Damask, Moss, Portland, Hybrid perpetual, Bermuda mystery roses, Gallica, Centifolia, China, Bourbon, Tea, Scots, Sweet brier.
- Modern Garden Roses: Classification of modern roses can be quite confusing as many modern roses have old garden roses as their predecessors and their form varies only so much. The classifications tend to be by growth and flowering characteristics, such as large-flowered shrub, recurrent, large-flowered shrub, cluster-flowered, rambler recurrent, or ground-cover non-recurrent. Many of the most popular modern cultivars can however be assigned to one of these two groups of hybrid tea and floribunda.