A Picture of Pink Roses

Attended by roses,

By kisses, by cherubim,

By whatever these pink things mean…

Silva Plath, Fever 103 deg

It wasn’t until 1733 that the word ‘pink’ was first recorded as a colour description in the English language. Prior to this, the word for pink was ‘rose’. In early 19th century France, when Redouté was painting many a picture of a pink rose for his up-coming book Les Roses, the word for both the colour and the plant  was (and still is) ‘rose’.  This isn’t surprising when most of the favoured garden roses of times past have borne pink blooms.  Despite the diversity of rose colours now available, pink roses are still the most widely grown among home gardeners.

The Meaning of Pink Roses

In the ‘language of flowers’, first popularised in France and later Victorian England, the pink rose stands for perfect happiness, grace and sweetness. While bright red spoke of love and passion, and white of innocence and chastity, pink was the happy half-way mark – a rose of gentle emotions. Not that this was always a good thing though: A giver of pink roses could be accused of indecision through not making his or her intentions clear enough!