The roses (Rosa spp.) are flowering along the roads and grace us with their sweet scent. There are many different kinds of rose. They can be tricky to tell apart. Luckily, the petals of all the roses can be used interchangeably.
I love making rose petal water with them. The scent infuses in the water and I use it to wash my face. It calms me and allows me to feel pampered. There are studies that show that rose scent has a calming effect on humans by lowering blood pressure and calming the breathing. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19370942/
The astringency in the petals help to close the pores and clean the skin while re-moisturizing it. It's a dreamy feeling. It's very easy to make. I pop a couple of handfuls of rose petals in a jar, fill it with water and let sit in a sunlit window for 2-3 days. Then I strain the petals out and discard them. The water will have the scent of the rose captured within it. I sometimes freeze containers with this water to add to body products later in the year or to add to Turkish delight candy made with Mountain Ash/Rowan berries (Sorbus spp.). Rowan is another member of the very large rose family, Rosaceae. Rose petal water also tastes great as a drink on its own and is a good remedy if you have diarrhea.
The petals taste great as a trail nibble. The kids and I took a hike up Mt Rose Swanson the other day and ate the petals of the various rose species we found along the trail--Prickly Rose (Rosa acicularis) and Baldhip Rose (Rosa gymnocarpa). Whenever we pick the rose petals we make sure to only take a few from each flower so that the bees and other pollinators can still find the flowers to do their magic. In the fall we reap the wonderful result- the rosehip.
There are many recipes online for rose petal jelly as well as for rose petal jam. I have yet to make a successful jelly with rose petals, my experiments tend to be more syrup than jelly. The petals can also be added to sugar and left to impart their flavour there. The rose scented sugar is nice to use in baking or in a cup of rose leaf tea. I like drying both the petals and the leaves in early summer. These I use throughout the year as tea or in baking.
An infusion from the rose leaves is helpful to clean wounds in. It helps to disinfect as well as close the pores and enables the skin to heal faster.
The roses all have prickles. These differ from thorns and spines. A prickle is defined as "a sharp pointed emergence arising from the epidermis or cortex". A thorn on the other hand is, "a sharp-pointed, and leafless modified stem". To contrast, a spine is classified as, "a stiff pointed plant part that is a modified leaf or leaf part". These definitions are taken from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.
No matter what you call those spiky parts, they can rip your skin if you move around roses without caution. Luckily, the kind rose also provides medicine if you do get scraped. Chew up a couple of rose leaves and place the wad over your scrape and you will be good to go in no time.
Enjoy your summer and don't forget to stop and smell the roses.
Love,
Mikaela
