BURGUNDY ICEBERG?!

So this entry, like others that will inevitably come in the future, is purely for this page. The general Casa audience might find it, well, snooze worthy but it's something that excited me, moving on...

I popped into Anawalt Lumber the other day (Highland location) to see if they had this one flower/plant I keep seeing all around and am in love with but have no idea what it is or what it's called- its the flower in the foreground of this shot (from our recent trip to Santa Barbara County wine country, thanks to Tracy for the picture). I think it might be a wildflower but if you know what it is please leave me a comment.

So they didn't have that but what I did find was pretty exciting, well at least to me. Most people are familiar with or at least have seen the iceberg rose. It is that extremely popular white rose you see in gardens all over the country. People grow it because it is very low maintenance, disease resistant, and it's covered in white double blossoms virtually all summer long. This is not your hoity toity formal rose, it is a great all around garden work horse. So over the years (white iceberg was first bred in the 1950's) they have developed other varieties of iceberg roses in an array of colors but with the same great growing habits- there are 2 different pinks as well as a red and a yellow (though I'm not 100% sure that the roses that call themselves iceberg under those last 2 colors technically are) . There is also a climbing version of the white rose. And now (well it actually came out last year but is now widely available) they have a burgundy iceberg and it is BEAUTIFUL and Anawalt has it!!! I don't have any roses in my garden but this is one I would consider getting!!!

The picture on the left is an official photo from a site that sells it and the one on the bottom is the actual plant at Anawalt Lumber.
I think the actual plant is more interesting & beautiful than the supposed beauty shot. The catalog picture makes the rose out to be purple, which it isn't. There is this ongoing quest in the rose industry for a true blue rose and so I think growers are always skewing their photos of roses that are in the purplish range towards that blue ideal which P.S. cannot exist naturally. It has to do with the chemicals/enzymes that exist (or don't exist) in a rose's cellular organs but there are geneticists (REALLY!) trying to splice in cellular enzymes and pieces from other flowers to try to make it happen. For more info on that craziness you should read Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart (no relation to Martha).

You can see in my image that the older flowers have faded to pink while the new ones are a darker burgundy. While it is nice to have a flower hold it's color, especially when you are tying to create a more formal monochromatic feel in a garden, a plant like this has it's place too. In the informal, cottage garden (where iceberg roses are typically found anyway) you get one plant that gives you the color and effect of 2 or 3. In my garden with it's pinks and purples, this rose would fit right in!