There is no such thing as black rose or blue rose

Sorry to disappoint, but there is no such thing as ‘black’ roses. What might sometimes be referred to as a black rose is actually a dark red rose. A good example is “The Black Rose of Turkey”, is a breed that appears pitch-black to the eye, but in actuality it is a dark reddish-crimson colour.

And as far as blue colour is concerned, true-blue pigments don’t occur naturally in Roses. There are lots of good purples among the old roses and hundreds of excellent mauves and lilacs were introduced in the 1950s and 1960s. Rhapsody in Blue, a vigorous shrub with smoky-purple flowers, is one of the most popular of modern roses, but it’s not the sort of blue you may be thinking of.

The Juliet rose

Rose breeder David Austin spent $5 million to create the apricot-hued hybrid over the course of 15 years. Rose Juliet debuted in 2006 at the Chelsea Flower Show and took the floral world by storm not only for its blushing beauty but because it was the most expensive rose ever developed. The Juliet rose sold for $15.8 million in 2006, which also made it the world’s most expensive rose cultivar.

Published in Dawn, Young World, November 12th, 2022