Herb of the year: Rose

“The rose, queen of flow­ers! Her fra­grance cap­tured in the essen­tial oil, is the most pre­cious of all heav­enly scents. It refreshes the soul; its fra­grant poetry brings joy to the heart.”

— Susan Fischer-Rizziu

How do you cap­ture the essence of the world’s most famous flower? Hav­ing it named the herb of the year seems like such a small cel­e­bra­tion. The Herb Soci­ety of Amer­i­can fea­tures a dif­fer­ent herb each year to bring to the forefront.

The selec­tion for 2012 is the rose, which sur­prised peo­ple since most don’t real­ize that eat­ing roses is fla­vor­ful and excit­ing. Roses are one of the old­est recorded flower yet still one of the most pop­u­lar. The rose is the most used flower men­tioned in lyrics, poems, songs and paintings.

If it weren’t for the rose, wed­dings, funer­als, the Ken­tucky Derby, the Rose Parade and Valentine’s Day would not be the same.

Roses have long been a culi­nary sta­ple in Mid­dle East­ern cui­sine, and used for their med­i­c­i­nal qual­i­ties since Ancient Greek and Roman times.

One of the favorite roses to use for culi­nary pur­poses is the rugosa (R.rugosa). My advice is to taste the rose petals before you cre­ate your favorite recipe, since some can have a very strong fla­vor while oth­ers can be bit­ter. Never eat a rose from a florist or one that has been sprayed. Only eat them from sources you know and trust, like your own back yard or from a friend. There are also com­pa­nies that you can order edi­ble roses from online.

I had the plea­sure of attend­ing a lun­cheon in Franken­muth, Mich., where each of the menu selec­tions fea­tured the use of roses. You can use the fla­vor in your favorite recipe at home by adding just a hint of rose­wa­ter, infus­ing in rose hip tea or sprin­kling roses on top.

If you are one who has the same chal­lenges as I when grow­ing roses, start small with one or two easy to grow vari­eties. Most roses need at least six hours of sun, a pH of around 6.5 and good air cir­cu­la­tion around the plant to help pre­vent diseases.

Rose vari­eties can reach 2 to 25 feet tall, and about the same width. They require a well-drained soil, kept moist, but not wet. Prop­a­ga­tion is by cut­tings or grafts. The vari­eties of roses are plen­ti­ful, with hun­dred avail­able and new ones com­ing out yearly. They can be used any­where in your land­scape: stand­ing alone, climb­ing a arbor or being fea­tured in your herb garden.

The best roses to use are the antique or heir­loom roses. The new hybrids have been cre­ated for the large blooms, longer stems and col­ors, but along the way they have lost their med­i­c­i­nal val­ues and fra­grance. Rosa Gal­lica or apothe­cary rose is a favorite used for med­i­c­i­nal pur­poses. The name comes from them being planted out­side apothe­cary shops.

Roses have played a part through­out his­tory and will con­tinue to do so for cen­turies to come. Many indus­tries such as per­fume, house­hold prod­ucts, flo­ral, jew­elry and culi­nary have relied on roses to sur­vive. Today in Europe, there are monas­ter­ies and abbeys that con­tinue to make rose petal beads used for rosaries. Some say the rosary was named after the rose hips that were strung by the monks to cre­ate the val­ued rosary. Later they were made from the paste of crushed rose petals rolled and dried into beads.

Rose essen­tial oil is fea­tured in per­fumes, lotions and bath and body prod­ucts. It takes about 4,000 pounds of rose petals to get 16 ounces of pure rose essen­tial oil. Rose water is usu­ally made with dis­tilled water with rose essen­tial oil added, or made by infus­ing rose petals in sim­mer­ing water. Read the label to bet­ter under­stand the ingre­di­ents. Rose hips have been touted for their vit­a­min C con­tent, cal­cium, iron and phosphorus.

Roses pos­sess antibac­te­r­ial, anti­sep­tic and good vit­a­min and min­eral prop­er­ties which is why there are in as high demand today as they were in ancient times before the inven­tion of mod­ern syn­thetic drugs.

Susan Liechty is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Apr 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.