Blue roses are not found in nature. I know this because I read it on Wiki, which tells us:
"A blue rose is a flower of the genus Rosa (family Rosaceae) that presents blue-to-violet pigmentation instead of the more common red, white, or yellow. Blue roses are often portrayed in literature and art as a symbol of love and prosperity to those who seek it, but as a result of genetic limitations do not exist in nature. White roses have been dyed blue. In 2004, researchers used genetic modification to create roses that contain the blue pigment delphinidin.
So-called "blue roses" have been bred by conventional hybridization methods, but the results, such as "Blue Moon", are more accurately described as being lilac in color."
So they aren't natural; rather, altered and arresting. I have a vivid memory of my grandmother Geneva Mae's blue roses. I presumed the cynosures were from her extensive, lush rose garden, but come to think of it ... I only saw them inside the house. She made rose water, rose spritzers, exquisite bouquets. Red, pink, white, lilac and blue.
Because of the all-rose-all-the-time immersion at Grandma's—yard, home, aura—I floated, filmic, through seasonal visits to her "white house of roses" in Belleville, Illinois; the house with the screened in porch where we studied our captured lightning bugs in jars, watched the grown-ups drink Schlitz (the distillery was down the street) and ate apple pie with cheddar on hot summer nights. I haven't felt closer to magical realism since.
This on-the-nose exposition is offered by way of explanation for the blue roses on my landing page. They are a potent reminder, for me, that although abundant beauty pervades, subsumes and consumes us, there's always room to make our own beauty. That may, in truth, be the task ... the Grail Quest (a la Joseph Campbell). Which beauty, having been wrested from sorrow, strife, setbacks, connections, windfalls, LIFE, becomes our blue rose, our Geneva Mae.*
* That her name sounds like a rose was never lost on me, so I'm going with it: the blue rose = the Geneva Mae and each represents the endless, eternal beauty wo/man can bring to bear.
In. This. Life.
Why wait?
"A blue rose is a flower of the genus Rosa (family Rosaceae) that presents blue-to-violet pigmentation instead of the more common red, white, or yellow. Blue roses are often portrayed in literature and art as a symbol of love and prosperity to those who seek it, but as a result of genetic limitations do not exist in nature. White roses have been dyed blue. In 2004, researchers used genetic modification to create roses that contain the blue pigment delphinidin.
So-called "blue roses" have been bred by conventional hybridization methods, but the results, such as "Blue Moon", are more accurately described as being lilac in color."
So they aren't natural; rather, altered and arresting. I have a vivid memory of my grandmother Geneva Mae's blue roses. I presumed the cynosures were from her extensive, lush rose garden, but come to think of it ... I only saw them inside the house. She made rose water, rose spritzers, exquisite bouquets. Red, pink, white, lilac and blue.
Because of the all-rose-all-the-time immersion at Grandma's—yard, home, aura—I floated, filmic, through seasonal visits to her "white house of roses" in Belleville, Illinois; the house with the screened in porch where we studied our captured lightning bugs in jars, watched the grown-ups drink Schlitz (the distillery was down the street) and ate apple pie with cheddar on hot summer nights. I haven't felt closer to magical realism since.
This on-the-nose exposition is offered by way of explanation for the blue roses on my landing page. They are a potent reminder, for me, that although abundant beauty pervades, subsumes and consumes us, there's always room to make our own beauty. That may, in truth, be the task ... the Grail Quest (a la Joseph Campbell). Which beauty, having been wrested from sorrow, strife, setbacks, connections, windfalls, LIFE, becomes our blue rose, our Geneva Mae.*
* That her name sounds like a rose was never lost on me, so I'm going with it: the blue rose = the Geneva Mae and each represents the endless, eternal beauty wo/man can bring to bear.
In. This. Life.
Why wait?
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