The history of roses

'Quartered' flowers

Some 150 years ago there were no yellow, orange or copper-coloured roses. Anyone thinking of roses thought in terms of white, pink and red or very distinct combinations of those colours. There were various flower shapes, from flat rosettes to dense globes. Particularly unusual were the ‘quartered’ flowers, whereby the petals appear to be divided into four parts.

A good example is the ‘Mme Hardy’ rose. But there were also small pompoms and really large bowl shapes, and when it came to colour a lot of species changed colour during flowering. There is now great interest again in striped or flamed flowers: ‘Versicolor’, also called ‘Rosa Mundi’, is a good example. All those once popular historic roses have one thing in common: a magnificent scent, sweet or spicy.

The ‘English’ roses

It was the renowned David Austin who in the last century managed to cross many characteristics of the ‘old’ roses into ‘new’ roses. The result was a magnificent series of very different roses with many of the ‘old’ characteristics, but as healthy as the new species.

There are now several dozen, such as the apricot-coloured ‘Abraham Darby’, the pink ‘Constance Spry’, the now famous ‘Héritage’ (pale pink) and the warm pink ‘The Wife of Bath’. They all have a delectable scent.

Origins of roses

All garden roses come from growers. Most are grafted and bred and sometimes differ enormously from the wild species from which they derive. There are over a hundred of these, which all originate from the Northern Hemisphere.

Europe is a very important rose region, with nearly fifty varieties of wild roses. But roses also occur in the wild in North Africa, North America (not south of Mexico), the Near and Middle East, Russia, China and Japan.

Cultivated for a long time

Roses have been cultivated for at least 5000 years. Cultivation may have started in the Indus valley or in China. In any case, the ancient Persians produced rose oil from the petals and the oldest Chinese books already refer to roses. The Greeks brought Persian rose cultivation to the Romans, who became infatuated with roses and keenly cultivated them.

The oldest cultivated European roses originate from that Roman cultivation, but later rose cultivation was given a fresh impetus when European knights discovered (other) roses during the Crusades to Palestine and brought them home. As a result, rose oil was already being produced near Paris as early as the 13th century. 

Rose gardens and collections

The national rose collection in Holland has created the TOP Rose garden in Lottum, the rose village. There you can see and find out everything about roses. There are four rose gardens in the Netherlands where roses are tested, amongst other things: the Westbroekpark in The Hague, the Boskoop Rosarium, Rosarium Winschoten and Kasteeltuinen Arcen. In Lottum all the roses which have ever won the title of TOP Rose have been brought together.

If you are looking for the best roses, you can find them amongst the roses which have earned the distinction of ‘top rose’. These roses have undergone years of checks and are regularly re-checked on a host of characteristics. You can find the most recent list here. If you choose one or more roses from this list, you can be sure that they are strong, profusely flowering plants which will give you pleasure for many years to come.