>Yes, I bought the flowers myself:
The picture doesn’t quite do them justice; the bordeaux/red is deeper in colour, and the white flecks have a creamy warmth to them, but all in all they are perfectly gaudy and wonderful.
I wouldn’t want to ever grow any roses like this in our garden, but when you put 20 of them together in a cut-crystal vase they do have a certain je ne sais quoi to them. In a garden I want something calm, serene, but in a vase I don’t mind flowers that make a spectacle of themselves and somehow point a finger at themselves, saying “I am an artifice“.
They are, though, merely a consolatory gesture to myself to compensate for the lingering winter. When spring comes I shall have no eye for flowers like this; instead I will want budding branches and fresh green leaves.
Mind you, the forsythia might soon be ready for cutting branches to take inside for a bit of pre-seasonal spring bloom. Maybe I shall cut a few branches to bring back to my apartment when I go to the summer house next weekend.
>Those roses are gorgeous. Like you, I don't think I would want these in the garden; they don't look like they would play well with companions — but as cut flowers, they are wonderful. Just today, I was eyeing the forsythia in the back of my Gettysburg townhouse, wondering how soon I could cut some branches and bring them in for forcing. 🙂 -Jean
>Jean, I grew up with forced forsythias as one of the key indicators of spring, so I sincerely hope I will be able to tick off that box and enjoy some bright flowers from the garden as soon as possible…
>Sad to say I have never forced a forsythia. How do you do it because mine needs pruning? I have never seen roses so exotic, certainly a feast for the eyes.
>Carolyn, you just cut off some branches in late winter and bring them inside to a vase of water. (There's not even much of a need to acclimatise them or any fussy things like that.)After some days the flower buds will suddenly erupt in a cloud of yellow, and if you keep the branches inside after the flowers have dropped and continue changing the water, the leaves will then come out and you will have non-flowering branches with fresh spring leaves that look attractive in themselves but can also be used to add structure to cut daffodils or other flowers.