A rose means love... and smelling good. I feel cheated when I smell roses that has no scent. Without roses, there won't be any romance on Valentine's Day. P.S. Chocolate can cause constipation, but roses don't.

I totally agree that the scent of roses is a key part of their ineffable appeal!

I think love is a good description for the rose. All types of love too, from family to friendship to romance. But it's also a symbol of esteem and respect as well. You wouldn't send roses to anyone you didn't care for or about. You might, however, send them to impress someone you want to get on a better footing with. It's a more complicated thing than I thought!

Long ago and far away. Mysterious and beautiful. Nostalgia for the lost which never really was.

Merely a symbol for love? For some people perhaps, but it's nothing so simple as that to me. Look at pictures of Jon's garden or Mendocino Rose's garden and you will get a clearer sense of what roses mean to me.

Rosefolly

I originally got into roses because I stumbled onto this forum by accident. Before that stumbling, I thought all roses were HTs and all the high maintenance things that usually go along with them because that's all you see in Florida. My main reason for starting with them was from a practical standpoint. I live in a cold pocket and all the usual cast of characters grown here froze year after year, and I was tired of my garden looking ratty for half the year. Repeat roses bloom year around here, and they laugh at our cold. It's wonderful to have blooms in all seasons instead of looking out my windows at frozen bougs and hibiscus. But now I have also discovered the romance of the old roses, and it makes it even more enjoyable.

I think, when I started I saw roses as symbolizing love and friendship - the symbolizism being mostly between people. After my experiences with them in the garden for the past 3 years, they have come to symbolize hope. Hope in their ability to survive the most dire circumstances. Hope in that, no matter how ugly or dark a situation, I can look into my garden and see beauty, softness, color, and experience unimaginable fragrances. And that I can have a hand in making life more hopeful (by growing more roses?! Perhaps that's why I want to keep adding more! We rose addicts will go to any lengths to rationalize...)

lbuzzell...interesting the rose-lotus Asian story, I've have heard a similar Asian rose story involving the peony. Roses have been grown by Asians for centuries but never reached the same status as they did among European gardeners. The reason given was that the rose & peony were brought from the wild into the garden about the same time but the peony became "the plant to grow" & got all the Asian gardener's attention.

rosefolly has said it perfectly for me. The old roses bring to me a feeling of magic and intimations of a paradise that exists in the garden where they're planted, even if nowwhere else. There is sheer happiness in breathing in that old rose smell, in that feeling of being surrounded by beauty that is as ephemeral as the petals but also as constant as its branches and roots. Their history and ancient lineage are not conscious thoughts but linger in the background when I'm outside on a warm, sunny day with a slight breeze bringing the roses' scent to me. It cannot be described, or at least not by me, but is with me always. It's a paradise of the senses and of the mind.

Floridarosez seems to have summed it up for me except I was looking for plants that wouldn't cook in full sun not freeze in winter (but I do also have that problem.) The feeling for me is romantic bliss. They just make my heart sing and my eyeballs tingle.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Living history. A beautiful living link to those who went before us, and hopefully those who will follow after us.

Jeri

Oh dear - I surely have a prosaic soul but I cannot think that a rose symbolises anything - it just is. That is not to say that I am not moved by the beauty of flowers, just that they stand on their own without aquiring any particular levels of deeper meaning. Interesting question though.

I agree, Campanula. No symbolism for me - just happiness.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I think the rose is the archetype for Hope. Surrounded by thorns--the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes--its beauty--the perfection [of spirit] for which we all strive--reaches us through multiple senses: eyes, nose, touch, even taste. It lives a long, long time--in fact, the species and older classes are really pretty hard to kill--so it is reliable, always there, always brings pleasure, a smile, the promise that beauty ever dies. It takes up permanent residence in our inner landscapes; we all have roses in our childhood. Yet it isn't showy or ego-centric (at least, not the OGRs); it gives rather than takes. And all of that is what constitutes Hope.

We grow roses because they are beautiful and Beauty is the Promise to the world.

Roses were always the stars of the garden for me. If I saw roses in a garden, I was always drawn to them. Big bright HTs were all there were around. Maybe a few floribundas but not many. A big healthy HT in full bloom was a gardener's dream. I always thought they were for specialists requiring expert knowledge and care.

Then along came a friend named Robert who told me all his rose gardening wisdom. Roberts garden was an amazing collection of all kinds of roses and azaleas planted on a terraced steep slope so that when it bloomed you couldn't see the bases of any plants. He had so many plants that he knew just where he could fit his foot when going up to deadhead them and not squash a snapdragon or a geranium. He had beautiful teas and chinas and even the very first DA imports which we fussed over when they had their first blooms.
My little patch of herbs became my first rose bed with 8 HTs and Robert bought me my first hyb. musk from the RoY&T catalog. Roses always seemed rare and expensive. Something you get for a special occasion. Robert had them by the armload full. For me it was like someone saying "This is how you grow emeralds- first you get a little rock and put it in a special place. You water it every day and watch over it and feed it and in 6 months you will have emeralds." I'll always be grateful to Robert for showing me how to grow emeralds.

Now I think of roses as history and objects of beauty in art and photography. My own roses have become personalities of a sort. I care about how they are and what they are doing. The symbolism of love and rarity fell away for me and now I'm just friends with the plants.

I'm in the Suzy (Campanula) camp: roses don't symbolize anything for me, they're just beautiful. I appreciate symbolism in literature but it doesn't enter into my own aesthetic goals when I design my garden, nor do I think of plants in symbolic terms. Different kinds of minds, I suppose.

The old roses take me out of this crazy world we're living in when I want or need this, and into a simpler place of peace and serenity oblivious of what's going on in the world. I find the history fascinating, sort of like an anchor; the pioneers brought their cuttings from their original homes and made new beginnings. And every spring the first blooms signify hope, year after year!

harmonyp, I love what you said about roses symbolizing hope and cheering us up even when things look the worst. There's good evidence now that nature-connection and gardening raise our mood and lower our anxiety - ecotherapy!

wirosarian, yes it's strange that in the East - the source of all our roses' remontancy - the rose wasn't cherished as much as the lotus, chrysanthemum and peony.
Ingrid, I too believe there's deep aromatherapy healing in just breathing in our roses' fragrance, and I love their history and stories too, which makes the whole experience more soulful, doesn't it? A modern rose with no subtle smell, color, history or fragrance has no spiritual resonance for me.
ogrose and jeri thanks for your love of history too... everyone has said such true and lovely things.
Roses have traditionally been associated with women, the archetypal feminine and even goddesses - Aphrodite and even the Virgin Mary. They seem to resonate with the "anima" in both women and men.

So difficult to explain: As Ingrid said, paradise, and imagination, fantasy, ancient times, a garden of perfection. Disease and drought do not exist there nor anywhere when one is contemplating a rose. Then also they conjure memories of long lost loved ones enveloped by their roses standing in cool bright sunlight. Then there is that "old rose" scent. No wonder the Chinese did not revere roses as westerners did. Theirs did not have that incomparable scent. Lilies, gardenias, violets, carnations, daphne - name your flower. None has a scent that goes to the heart like that "old rose", damask, fragrance.

Cath

Only wild dogroses have any particuclar significance for me because of old Swedish folksongs and medieval ballads about roses. The hue of maidens in these ballads is always likened to roses and the only roses then were of course the pale pink dog roses.

The picture is from my own garden but I had to step over to the neighbours to see it:

For many in the middle ages, the rose was a religious symbol. One of my favorite songs, Ther is no rose of such vertu, was written in the early 1400s in England. In this song the rose is symbolic of Virtue in spirituality, morality and humanity. The melody is just beautiful. A particularly fine recording is by the Hilliard Ensemble on the CD Alleluia This Sweete Song- The best of Millenium of Music Vol. 2 which features selections written about Christmas.

There is no rose of such Virtue
As is the rose that bare Jesu
For in this rose conteyned (contained) was
Heaven and earth in lityl(little) space
Res miranda ( a thing to wonder at)

I think of the religious orders from those early times, tending gardens and saving plants for future generations. The hours spent in prayer in the cloister where often a rose was planted.

re: There is no Rose of Such Virtue.
The music was beautiful with sections of Gregorian chant, which makes sense considering its time period. In fact, it was probably originally all in Gregorian chant (plain song). Thank you for that gift.

Cath

Here's a beautiful version by Chanticleer in the same melody and style of my favorite.

Here is a link that might be useful: There is no rose of such virtue

Cath - what a great point about the chinese roses lacking that great "old rose" nose - I bet you're right that this may have been part of why the Chinese didn't fall in love with roses. As far as I'm concerned, the minute we smell that fragrance, the rose has got to be Queen!
And thanks Kitty and Cath for the lovely carol. Mary has always been associated with the rose, and before her some of the greek goddesses.

I consider roses to be the jewels of the garden.
Jeannie

Old fashioned roses represent romance, literature and history...almost a fairy tale appeal, IMHO :)

For the ancients the rose symbolized transience and sensual love. Sappho called the it the flower of Venus; and a late
Roman poet wrote:

Tot species, tantosque ortus variosque novatus
una dies aperit, conficit ipsa dies.
So many lovely things, so rare, so young,
A day begat them, and a day will end.
"De Rosis Nascentibus", line 39; translation from Helen Waddell Mediaeval Latin Lyrics ([1929] 1943) p. 29.
This poem used to be misattributed to Virgil, but is now usually ascribed to Ausonius (a 4th century poet from Burgundy):

Collige, virgo, rosas, dum flos novus et nova pubes,
et memor esto aevum sic properare tuum.
O maid, while youth is with the rose and thee,
Pluck thou the rose: life is as swift for thee.
"De Rosis Nascentibus", line 49; translation from Helen Waddell Mediaeval Latin Lyrics ([1929] 1943) p. 29. (courtesy wikipedia)

Apparently there was quite a flowering of pagan Latin rose poetry in fifth and sixth century north Africa, as well.
***
For the Persians, who gave us both the rose and the word for paradise (a garden), the rose and nightingale have always symbolized both aspects of love at once -- the sensual being for them an aspect of transcendent and ineffable love.
***
As they did with other pagan emblems, when the Christians took the rose over: rather than associating it with death and mortality, as in pagan literature, they made it also a symbol of eternity. In the 13th c. secular Roman de la Rose the rose continued to be associated with Venus (now something of an allegorical figure). Dante's Divine Comedy, however, concludes with a vision of God and the saints in the form of a heavenly, yellow-centered white rose (Rosa alba).

For me, the older roses evoke thoughts of the 18th century, before the age of mass manufacture, a time when people, and not just the very rich, but the middle and craftsmen classes were just beginning to discover the art of living. Because everything fine was still made one by one, by hand, it was a time when in some ways people's perceptions were perhaps more refined than they have ever been since, or so I like to imagine. And I think the older roses reflect this.

VERY old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the brier's boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are--
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose. -- Walter de la Mare

Correction: Ausonius was from Bordeaux not Burgundy.

Sad to me when flowers make people think of the shortness of life. Like Dutch still life paintings where the fruit is overripe and the pretty petals fall. Also that famous poem Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May.
If I ever find a little bird who passed away, I always make a great cushion of rosepetals and also use them as a covering. I always take every good petal I can find for the pets when they go so that they are surrounded by thick soft cushions of petals. It gives me great joy to do this for them. The world's most fragrant roses for my dearest friends.
I see the roses not as a caution that life is short but they remind me to enjoy living each day, as they say, to stop and smell the roses.

Monarda, THANK YOU. That was beautiful.

A.E. Houseman, he of 'A Shropshire Lad' was a classicist, and his poems show it.

"With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipped maiden,
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot lads are laid;
The rose-lipped maids are sleeping
In fields where roses fade."

And from William Blake, who was NOT a classicist:

"O Rose, thou art sick.
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm
Has found out thy bed of crimson joy
And his dark secret love
Doth thy life destroy."

Then there is Lo How a Rose Ere Blooming, a fifteenth century Christmas carol.

Cath

urk, various rellies have bought me glossy books over the years detailing roses in literature, roses in art and so forth. To my (slight) shame, these books have been relegated to the 'insulation' wall and remain unglanced at.
I remain surprised that gardening ever managed to gain any traction in my life, given that I was also deeply suspicious of anything which involved outdoors activities (the countryside still strikes me as a frightening space full of things which bite, sting or smell unpleasant - guess I am going to get a big shock once I am transplanted out of my comfort zone to pursue some kind of rural homesteading lifestyle - although I am fairly sure I will not be exposed to tedious stuff like ballet, opera (shudder), fashion , poetry(?) or 'modern dance' and can remain a cultural retard with a terrible haircut, dodgy teeth and a bad Sci-Fi habit. I only have to cultivate a heavy drinking and gambling character and I will fit right in (at least in the part of Norfolk where we are heading - a kind of hillbilly appalachia).

Playing jacks on a dusty road
Cars driving by with windows down soiling the air with the smell of gasoline
Fearing dark came before the game of jump rope was over
Fireflies in the late afternoon humidity
Giggling from all the silly girls who liked the silly boys
Putting on lipstick and trying to wipe it off before heading home
The swoosh of brooms sweeping the dirt yards made by old ladies and used by all ladies
My grandmother's voice calling, "soup's on" to let me know I need be washed and and home soon, at the table in 5 minutes.
Running by the arbor so as not to waste time, my dress catching on thorns, and savoring the fragrance while freeing my dress without tearing, thus, hastening my grandmother's rage lest she have to do a patch job.
Pulling the flower heads off the bushes to float in water on the dinner table by dim light so the room's fragrance was more floral and less salt pork and dried cooked beans
Dreaming of a day I would wear proper roses in a corsage for a ball when prince charming came picked me up in his convertible, and we dined by candlelight at a table with the smell of roses and glow of love.

Monarda, Melissa, Patricia and everyone - many thanks for the wonderful historical info and poetry! This is what makes the antique roses so evocative...

Roses are a gift of price
Sent to us from Paradise
More devine our nature grows
In the Eden of the Rose
To me they are like a promise of beauty and joy.

The cowslip is a country wench
The violet is a nun
But I will woo the dainty rose
The queen of everyone

Thomas Hood 1799-1845

And

You love the roses- so do I .
I wish the sky would rain down roses, as they rain
from off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white and soft to tread on.
They would fall as light as feathers, smelling sweet: and it would be like sleeping and yet waking, all at once.

George Eliot 1819-1880

The ROSE is nothing more or less than BEAUTY incarnate.

Image of EVELYN by HoovB at Hortiplex

One day I said to my DH, "I am so lucky that I think roses are more beautiful than diamonds". He responded laughingly, "I am lucky you like roses better than diamonds". Now that's a sweet thing to say even if it was a tease. I don't know if this is symbolism but hope it's in the ballpark.

Cath