A rose garden,
under observation.

My interest in roses began when I was growing up in Iran. My parents had a large garden around our new home. When I was eight or nine, I was especially fascinated by two roses we called “seven-colored roses.” Their flowers shifted through vivid reds, oranges, and yellows as they matured. I never learned exactly what happened when the plants later developed serious health problems and were removed.

Years later, that memory came back when I chose roses for my own garden. I bought five Rio Samba plants, gave one to my parents, and kept four. Their color reminded me of those roses from Iran, though I can’t identify the childhood plants as the same cultivar.

That became the personal question at the heart of my HORT 162 report: why can roses that look equally promising at first perform so differently?