More Than Just A Pretty Flower

Are Roses herbs?  You bet.  
 

The Rose, Rosa spp. is not only a gorgeous and fragrant flower, but it is also used as a culinary and medicinal herb.  I have 24 antique roses in my garden and I know all of them by name, color, bloom season and if they produce rose hips.  Rose hips are the highest natural source of Vitamin C and quite delicious, particularly mixed with Lemon Balm or Chamomile or used in a Respiratory Tea for cedar fever or allergies.  As well as making a tea, the hips can be made into syrup.  Just last month, I made a Vitamin C Rose Hip cookie, made with dried rose hips, powdered vitamin C, rosewater, and rose petals, producing a healthy and delicious buttery cookie.  It won a prize at The Crossings Rose Bowl Party.  This contest was judged by the excellent chefs at The Crossings, so I am very honored to have my cookies become an AWARD-WINNING dessert.

With nurturing and tender loving care, Roses will grow well in our Central Texas gardens.  I have large rose bushes, climbing roses and small bushes in a variety of colors and fragrances.  My specifications when purchasing a rose include a strong, delightful fragrance (as I make my own Rosewater,) spring and fall bloomer, and hips production.  Antique roses are much easier to care for than hybrid roses, require less fertilizer and are more disease resistant.  Valentine’s Day was the day to prune back your roses by approximately 1/3.  Climbing roses need to be cleaned up a bit but not pruned.  Fertilize them well and then sit back and enjoy a spectacular spring bloom. 

Rose petals are velvety soft and high in mucilage.  They are often used in cosmetics, for the face and body, as they are nourishing and moisturizing for the skin.  I use fresh rose petals in my Rosewater, which is an ingredient in my Perfect Cream and Queen of Hungary’s Water.  I frequently use dry rose blossoms in herbal steams and EZ Herbs Miracle Grains (a facial cleanser).

Fresh rose petals can be made in to a tasty tea and used as an astringent to help alleviate heavy bleeding.  In Belize, the petals of red roses are frequently used during childbirth to control any hemorrhaging (Herbal Remedies of the Rainforest by Rosita Arvigo).  Roses are also “cooling” for fevers, and are used as an astringent for infantile or childhood diarrhea.

Roses speak the language of love and are frequently given to those we cherish.  Roses signify romance and seduction.  In old-fashioned Tussie mussies, red roses signify everlasting love, pink roses signify sweet affection and white roses signify the purity of romantic love. Cleopatra had her servants gather rose petals to scatter in her boudoir to entice the affections of her chosen one.  Legend has it that the couple would stand knee deep within the deep fragrance of the blossoms, swooning from the erotic aroma.

For fragrance, cut flowers, cosmetic preparations, yummy culinary additives and medicinal uses, plant roses: lots of them.  You’ll treasure them always.

Green Blessings, Ellen