White Rose Sampler

Video Transcription

Today, sharing a white rose sampler. Everything you need to know about the amazing Garden Roses available to us today. Plus, I'll be sharing a fabulous online resource.

With all the attention on white, there are so many choices to be made. So our friends at gardenrosesdirect.com sent us 12 different varieties to examine and study. All of them are grown at the same place, Alexandra Farms, so we know they were cared for identically. All of them are fabulous. I will tell you, I've been playing with them now for a little over a week and now we have a second set to share with you. When they come in, you want to do full care and handling. We have another video that you can look at for that. Then order them in to make sure you have time to let them open. Each of the varieties can take between two and four days to get to their full glory. But then you don't need to be concerned because even after that they'll have a vase life of seven to 14 days. So now let's take a moment and look at each variety.

The alabaster, it's a pristine white. You can see I have them all labeled. I took the label off the package and taped it on to make sure I kept track of which was which. It has a perfectly round face once it opens and the petals are unique in that they're a little bit pointed. It does take a few days to open. As you can see, it's still fairly tight and it's already two days old. So I think it's going to take a tad bit longer to reach its full beauty. Patience, it takes two to three days to open and it becomes a medium sized rosette with creamy white petals. So compared to the white white, creamy white. And they will vary depending on the season, but it's a super long laster as well. Then white cloud, this one is an amazing long laster. It will last 12 to 14 days, one of the very longest. It's kind of a bone white, medium sized, and it has a beautiful center once it fully opens.

Purity, it's one of my personal favorites. It's a creamy white outer petal and then a very pale peach inner center once it fully opens. It can take two days to open and then the vase life is up to 10 days. It's a beautiful laster. Aurora Gardens. It's got a wavy petal. You can see it has a little bit of contortion to the tips. It's a creamy white which opens to a really large cup. And the fragrance, very mildly like lavender. It's just delightful. Last one in this row. Leonora. It's a little bit yellower. It's still creamy white, but with just that touch of yellow. And this one, it takes three to four days to actually open out to its full beauty, but then it also has a long vase life. And the ruffled blooms are so romantic. It's perfect for weddings.

The White O'Hara is one of the larger blooms. It's very generous with its petal count. It has an amazing fragrance. Of all of them, it may be the strongest. And as it opens, it's got a very subtle, blushy, pink center, which makes it perfect for the blush weddings that are still in demand, as they always are. The next one, Eugenie, has a softer blush to the petals and they're ruffled. Takes three to four days to open, but it's sweetly scented. Not as strong, but it does have a nice fragrance. Last one in this row, the Princess Miyuki, it's a rosette shape once it's opened with ruffled petals. It's kind of a blushed white, so it's a little whiter than the others, but it still has that soft blush and it has a very classic garden rose fragrance.

Vicky Gardens. It's a white with a creamy peach touch to it. And the scent, it's kind of sweetly citrus, little bit different. It's a high petal count, very long lasting, and it, too, takes a couple of days to fully open. Bessie, another of my favorites. It's very heavily petaled, a symmetrical cup shape, very flat face, kind of a buttery cream, still in that white family, and a very light floral scent. Now, as I've been talking, you may have noticed that some of them have a tag like this, and others have a tag like this. This means it is one of the David Austin garden rose varieties and the others are not. They're equally as wonderful, but if you really covet, when you look for things, make sure it's the David Austin garden rose. Gives you a little different variety. Last one, this is Enid and it's creamy white with a very soft touch of pistachio as it opens out.And it, too, has that deep cup shape. When it's open, it's very flat and really high count of ruffled petals.

Your online resource is the gardenrosesdirect.com website. Go there and you can see beautiful pictures of every single one of these roses and many, many, many more. They also give you far more detail about what to expect, how long it will open, how long it will last, whether it's fragrant or not. All of the roses are grown at Alexandra Farms. Some of them are David Austin, some are not. They all are fabulous.

It was so much fun to explore the 12 different varieties and watch them as they opened, work with them, see which were thornier, which were not. And I invite you to do the same. When you have an opportunity, try a new rose, explore it, take it home, watch it open, see how long it lasts, and start a flower diary so that you know the details about flowers. And we're going to lay them off across the back here and get our picture so you can take that, print it, and put it up in your warehouse or your showroom or your flower room or your kitchen, wherever you'd like. So you have a resource to look at. And remember, what are those flowers? If you want to see how to design with them, check out our website, flowerschool.com. If you have questions, you can reach us through there as well, but now it's time for you to explore the world of garden roses and have fun as you do something you love.