Hey again, it's Jason from Fraser Valley Rose Farm.
Well I wonder if you've ever seen online or heard about a rose with some special feature
like color or pattern that you've wondered: is that for real?
Like this one here: obviously, a real world object, but the color isn't natural.
It's a white rose that's been painted blue.
With photoshop it's even easier to get effects like these.
So I'm going to go through 10 features of roses that you may wonder: Is it for real,
or is it fakery?
Let's start with number 1.
We'll start with the most obviously artificial of these fantastic roses, which has to be
the rainbow-colored rose.
If you want to see how it's done, you won't have to look very far.
There re plenty of videos right here on Youtube that will show you exactly how to do it with
paint or with dye.
Unfortunately, some source either unscrupulously or ignorantly claim these roses to be the
real natural colors.
There's no way of course that you'll get this color pattern from seed or by cuttings because
roses just don't swing that way.
They don't have that wide variation of color from petal to petal.
Don't get me wrong, though, you can find roses that have some pretty interesting and almost
hand-painted patterns.
Like 'Regensberg', bred by Sam McGredy in the 70's has the look of something that's
been painted by hand.
Also 'About Face', for instance, has a darker reverse on the petal which makes it look really
interesting, and 'Bull's Eye' has a color spot in the center that almost looks like
it's painted on.
Next up as number 2, let's look at the Tudor Rose, a symbol of English royalty that appeared
well after the War of the Roses.
I think it would be unfair to call this "fakery" because heraldic symbols like these were never
meant to be taken literally.
Symbolically, the Tudor Rose combine the Red Rose of Lancaster with the White Rose of York
forming a rose with two rings of color: red on the outside, and white on the inside.
For a little more complete treatment of the rose as a symbol of royal house, you can check
my video on the Alba roses, which I'll link above.
If you are looking for a real rose with red on the outside and white on the center, the
best I can put forward is 'Double Delight' which is a beautiful rose with a wonderful
scent and oh so photogenic.
Moving on to number 3 on the list, rose breeders have been working on finding a blue rose for
literally centuries, but the stumbling block has been the genetics.
Behind me here, of course, is an autumn monkshood, which is from the buttercup family and along
with delphinium has that true blue color that you'd be looking for - nothing like that exists
in a rose.
So the closest that breeders have been able to come so far is to have roses that open
a darker color and then fade through a color that looks like blue, like 'Veilchenbleu'
which is a most excellent rambler that does exactly that, or, more recently, they've been
able to breed roses that open up mauve and stay that way fairly color-fast.
These include roses like the excellent 'Neptune' that has great garden vigour In the number
4 spot, let's talk about the thornless rose.
They could say that every roses has its thorn but actually thornless roses are a real thing,
and there are examples of them going back centuries.
Even from my own garden I can give you a few examples: 'Ghislaine de Feligonde' and excellent
rambler in the apricot color, you have 'Sophie's Perpetual' a china/damask with excellent scent
and no thorns at all and 'Zephirine Drouhin' a hot pink climber from the Bourbon class.
Next up at number 5 let's talk about a green petaled rose and in fact this is another common
subject for painting and dying of roses, but the green petaled rose is a real thing and
actually a little bit unusual.
It's a rose that replaces its petals with modified leaves - called Rosa viridiflora,
and it's been known in the trade for a couple of centuries.
For number 6, I'd like to show you the Robin's Pincushion, which is a funny mossy colorful
structure that often grows either in the branches of roses or where the flower should be.
It's actually the result of a rose gall wasp.
I've shown that off in another video recently - I'll link that above, but it is a very real
thing and a very unusual feature of roses.
For number 7, would you believe in a rose that can cover an entire city lot?
Well it's a real thing.
In Tombstone AZ this specimen has been opened up as a tourist attraction, and it so large
that it has to be shored up with an intricate network of supports.
It's the Lady Banks rose, and quite a large specimen of it.
Although other ramblers can rival this variety for size, I've never seen one quite this big.
Moving on to number 8, since I've already told you that the rainbow colored rose and
the true blue rose are definite products of artificial coloring, it'll come as no surprise
to you know, looking at these pictures from Ebay that these seeds (sold as "rare and unusual"
varieties) are complete frauds - mostly put together with Photoshop.
I really hope you won't even dignify these frauds with an attempt to grow them, but if
you ever did, most likely you'd end up with a white or red beach rose or rugosa rose from
China.
For number 9, I'd like you took at the mossy covering you see on the epidermis of these
roses.
Does that look real to you?
Well, in fact it is.
It was a natural genetic variation that was found among the centifolia roses.
For a while after discovery, breeder bred this feature into everything because it was
so novel and interesting.
Then, just as quickly, within the next 50 years it went out of fashion and nobody was
breeding moss roses anymore.
I still have a couple of them in my garden, including this excellent purple rose called
'William Lobb' and also the interesting 'Chapeau de Napoleon' or 'Napoleon's Hat' with it's
highly crested flower buds.
If you do get a chance to rub our fingers on the outside of this moss, you'll find that
it's sticky, quite resinous and smells somewhere between an evergreen tree and apples.
And finally as number 10 I thought that since I'd disillusioned of a few of the novelty
colors in this video, I would end by highlighting a group I quite like: the brown, beige and
buff roses which are really exceptional in the garden.
I'll give you some examples: 'Hot Cocoa' which is classified a russet color, or 'Distant
Drums' which is classified as a mauve, 'Kokoloko' which is very hot these days - everybody wants
one in their garden, 'Julia's Rose' as pictured here, and 'Buff Beauty' which has been around
for a while but I still find the color quite exceptional.
Alright that's the end of the list, and if you can think of any other cool but questionable
features of roses please leave those in the comments below, and we'll go through those
together and figure them out.
Thanks so much for watching!