Blue roses: do they exist? Plenty of roses have “blue” in their names, including ‘Blue Bajou’, ‘Blue Moon’, and ‘Blue Ribbon’. But to most people’s eyes (including mine), the flowers are a pale, silvery lavender.
Lovely in their own weird way (if Miss Havisham had a wedding bouquet, it would have been faded lavender roses), these so-called blue roses are coolly somber. You cannot imagine them doing anything as exuberant as, say, engulfing an arbor on Nantucket. But how refined and pretty a posy would be in a tarnished silver plate vase:
‘Blue Bajou’
‘Applause’
In Japan, it took Suntory nearly 20 years of research and genetic modification with the pigment delphinidin to bring to market in 2009 its ‘Applause’ blue rose. Working Australia-based biotech firm Florigene, Suntory inserted the same gene in a rose that blue pansies use to synthesize pigment. The result: another pale lavender rose.
‘Blue Moon’
‘Blue Ribbon’
- The 7 Best Climbing Roses for Your Garden.
- 10 Easy Pieces: Fragrant Roses.
- Landscape on a Budget: The $250 Instant Rose Garden.
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