Oh, Eden Rose. How I love thee. Let me count the ways....
I have had an obsession with this rose for years now. I mean, I love this rose. You'd be seriously hard pressed to find me wearing any shade of pink, but when it comes to flowers, all bets are off.
Mom and I first spotted this beauty, years ago, climbing up an amazing home overlooking the Pacific in Corona Del Mar, California. At the time, we didn't know what rose it was.
It is a beautiful, prolific climbing (but can also be trained as a shrub) rose that begins with creamy white buds, and as it opens, it changes color. The tips of the petals are a rich, saturated pink that look like they've been dipped in watercolor. As the flower opens, the petals become lighter and lighter and fade to the lightest blush pastel pink. They are super heavy and have tons of densely-packed petals.
We happened upon it again a few months later on a weekend visit to Filoli (pronounced fee-low-lee) near San Francisco. The tag deemed it an Eden Rose Climber (the French call it Pierre De Ronsard).
Developed by French flower grower Meilland in 1987 and is apparently, very resistant to fungus and bugs. The only drawbacks are it doesn't have much smell, needs a bit of shade and doesn't like to get wet. Other than that, in the right zone, these roses are supposed to be very easy to care for! It was also voted into the World Federation of Rose Society Roses Hall of Fame in 2006.
(Another completely amazing rose that I found this week is the Yves Piaget - it looks like the most amazing peony! You have to look it up)
Neither Mom nor I own this rose, so how I obtained the flowers in these photos will remain a secret.
Suffice to say, it involved a bit of covert operations and a mostly absent neighbor who will never know what they're missing.
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Hi Meg.
ReplyDeleteI understand your obsession. I hope you have at least one of these roses. I have three of them and was looking for web photos for inspiration of how to display the two more I have on order when I found your blog.
I know exactly where your soul resides if you love these, they are beautiful. But sadly in New Zealand, these roses dont have a smell. I am severely jealous when I see comments about the smell of these roses.
They are just beautiful.
And funny too, I visited Orange County when I spent time at Disneyland, just loved the county and the weather.
Hope you have or get to grow a lot of these roses, they give me please just about every day of the year. They are either flowering or I am looking at them remembering the flowers and looking forward to the new ones. Its Autumn here and I have lots of buds and two flowers out, doesnt make sense but there you go.
Theresa