The rose is the official National Floral Emblem of the United States. This legislation was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on October 7, 1986. The rose is also the state flower selected by Georgia, Iowa, New York, North Dakota and the District of Columbia.

Three separate nationally conducted public opinion polls, dating from 1975 to 1986, found the rose to be the number one choice of over 85 percent of those individuals surveyed.

George Washington, our first president, was also our first U.S. rose breeder!

In 1994, over 1,200,000,000 roses were purchased by U.S. flower buyers. This works out to a per capita consumption of 4.67 per person.

The rose is native to the United States. The oldest fossilized imprint of a rose was left on a slate deposit in Florisant, Colorado, which is estimated to be 35 million years old.

There are nearly 900 acres of greenhouse area dedicated to the production of fresh cut roses in the U.S.

About 60% of the roses grown in the U.S. are produced in California.

One acre of greenhouse rose production in the U.S. is valued at about one million dollars, including value of plants, greenhouse structure and land.

The most popular rose holidays in the U.S. are Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Christmas.

Columbus discovered America because of a rose! It is written that on October 11, 1492, while becalmed in the Sargasso Sea, one of the crewmen picked a rose branch from the water. This sign of land renewed their hope for survival and gave the seafarers the courage to continue on to the New World.

America’s Favorite Flower

Universally accepted as living symbols of love, friendship, success and peace, roses are becoming more and more popular as gifts for all occasions and, as well, for spur-of-the-moment, everyday expressions of good feelings. They are being used as birthday and anniversary gifts, to decorate a hostess table, to say "thank you" for a job well done, or to say "I love you" at a most unexpected time.

The classic lines and beauty of the rose appeal to just about everyone, whether man or woman, modern or traditional, young or old. A rose gift is the perfect answer for the person who "has everything." It’s always the right size, shape and color, and it’s never too fattening. What’s more, the size of a rose bouquet can be adjusted to fit any pocketbook.

Symbol of Celebration

Roses have been a beautiful symbol of celebration in all cultures. Nothing expresses personal sentiments better than roses, and they’re always in style. Whatever color or size you choose, roses are perfect and perfectly beautiful. Who can ever forget the first time they received roses?

Roses in the U.S.

The rose has been selected by Georgia, Iowa, New York, North Dakota and the District of Columbia as their official flower. Given the tremendous popularity of roses among Americans, it’s no wonder that resolutions were introduced in Congress in 1986 to name the rose the National Flower.

The Christmas Rose

Roses always make beautiful and timely gifts, and they fit in especially well during the holiday season. According to legend, the rose actually came to be associated with Christmas on the night that Christ was born. As the very touching story of the Christmas rose goes, a little shepherdess was saddened because she had no gift to offer the Child of Bethlehem. Maintaining vigil over her sheep, she wept and wept - and her tears soaked the ground where she stood.

Suddenly an angel appeared, touched the tear-softened earth, and the ground sprang alive with beautiful roses. Immediately the girl gathered a magnificent bouquet of these Christmas roses and joyfully carried them to Christ’s manger. Just as soon as He laid eyes on them, the Holy Child turned from the gems and gold of the Wise Men and extended His tiny hands in the direction of the flowers.

Roots

Roses are native to the United States. Rose fossils that have been carbon dated some 35 million years old have been found in Montana and Oregon. There are 30,000 or more rose varieties known today and no other flower has such a complicated family tree. The experts divide all roses into two groups, "old roses," or those cultivated in Europe before 1800 (the red rose falls into this category); and "modern roses," which began to be cultivated in England and France around the turn of the 19th century. In olden times, roses bloomed only once a year. Now, though, roses are available to us through florist shops every single day of the year.

Roses Throughout History

Throughout history, roses were used in incredibly extravagant ways. The Romans thought nothing of carpeting their huge banquet halls with rose petals, and it is said that Cleopatra once received her beloved Marc Antony in a room literally knee-deep in rose petals.

Acclaim for the Rose

The rose has been acclaimed in an almost endless number of ways. For example:

• The rose is the only flower to which a garden has been totally devoted on the grounds of the United Nations, on the White House grounds in Washington, D.C., and in thousands of public parks throughout the nation.
  

• The month of June has been set aside as National Rose Month since 1969.
  
  

• The fourth week in June has been designated by the Governor of Indiana as "A Rose for Friendship Week" due to the almost single-handed efforts of J. B. Hoy, a semi-retired businessman.
  
  

• The rose inspires fashion, interior design, sculpture and architecture. It is the design theme for countless patterns of silver, china, wallpaper, carpet and clothing. The "bed of roses" is one of the most popular motifs for spreads and coverlets.

• Fairy tales carry themes of roses to children. Grimm’s Beauty and the Beast, for example, characterizes the rose that Beauty’s father picked in the Beast’s castle garden. In Alice in Wonderland, the gardeners painted white roses red to please the Queen of Hearts.

The rose is called the "Queen of Flowers." While roses are readily available to all of us, they also have been known to "hob nob" with royalty. The King of Sweden, for example, sent Silvia Sommerlath, now his wife and Sweden’s Queen, one dozen yellow roses every day during a four-year romance. That adds up to 1,461 dozen . . . or 17,532 individual flowers.

Queen Elizabeth and Princess Grace of Monaco are among those who have had roses named after them.

Rose Stamp

The rose was first honored by the U.S. Postal Service in 1978 with its very own stamp. It’s a first class stamp that features illustrations of two award-winning roses.

The Quest for the Perfect Rose

Today’s roses are the result of centuries of genetic reshuffling, the work of both nature and man. Rose hybridizers have been able to combine and recombine genes for constant improvement. The results have been new colors, forms, textures, habits and fragrances, more vigor and disease resistance.

Most of the roses currently on the market primarily have been produced by the work of about 50 professional hybridizers. Each one cross-pollinates thousands of roses every year in hopes of finding that "perfect" one. The number of possible genetic combinations for new roses is mind boggling, but the odds have been placed at about 100,000 to 1 against any specific cross-fertilization producing an outstanding new rose.

George Washington - Our First Rose Breeder

George Washington, our first president, was our first rose breeder as well. Washington laid out his own garden at Mt. Vernon and filled it with his own selections of roses. He named one of his varieties after his mother and it is still being grown today.

The World’s Largest Rosebush

The world’s largest rosebush is located in a city named Tombstone in Arizona. Planted from a slip from another rosebush in the late 18th century, its trunk is nearly six feet around.

When in full bloom, this rosebush has more than 200,000 blossoms - and its branches spread out six feet thick over an arbor under which more than 150 people can be seated comfortably.

The Rose in Music

Some 4,000 songs have been written about roses including:

Rose of Tralee
The Last Rose of Summer
Red Roses for a Blue Lady
Everything’s Comin’ Up Roses
Ramblin’ Rose
Moonlight and Roses
Primrose Lane
My Wild Irish Rose
To a Wild Rose
Only a Rose
Yellow Rose of Texas
San Antonio Rose
Second Hand Rose
Mighty Like a Rose
Rose of Washington Square
Days of Wine and Roses
I Didn’t Promise You a Rose Garden
When She Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Red, Red Rose
Mexicalli Rose

The Gift of Love

People everywhere love roses. A charming ritual incorporating roses is a central part of some wedding ceremonies held at a church in Tarzana, California. The minister presents a red rose to both the bride and groom. The couple is then instructed to exchange roses, thereby giving to each other the symbolic gift of love as their first gift as husband and wife. At the end of the ceremony, they are advised to resolve any conflicts they may have in the years ahead by presenting each other with red roses.

More and more couples maintain this tradition throughout their married lives, presenting each other one rose for each year of marriage on every anniversary.

Rose Buying Tips

All roses are beautiful, but all roses are not necessarily alike. To be sure you get the very best, take your business to a florist.




This information is provided courtesy of the International Cut Flower Growers Association, Haslett, MI, USA.