I don't think hybridizers have come up with a blue rose yet. Lavender is more like it. Blue Moon is listed in A Rose by Any Name by Douglas Brenner and Stepen Scanniello as being the bluest rose, although it is lavender. The book was published in 2009. Do you think Blue Moon would still hold the title of being "the bluest rose"?

I have Blue Girl. Its pretty lavender.

'Reine de Violettes' is purty blue . . .

Some of them fade to a nice blue. Rhapsody in Blue starts out almost purple and then fades to blue.



Blue for You does the same thing.



Blue Bajou can look quite blue.

Mmm, violet is actually my fave color, jerijen. And it probably is the "bluest " on the dk/bright closest to blue color spectrum.

Seth, I bought a Blue Girl at Home Depot this spring, and it's getting ready to bloom. The Rose pic is lighter than yours, and the bloom looks like it will be lilac with some pink:

Thank you, Zuzu! The blue ones you added are an interesting "blue!" Makes me want to grow them for something different.

Rosemary, watch out for those package pics. The colors are often off by a lot. The catalogs are too a lot of the time. They always put the MOST glorious pictures to lure you in! I also found on the ones that are sitting outside at the stores that the pics have faded out a lot from the sun. I bought what I thought was going to be a beautiful soft peach rose once that turned out to be glow- in-the-dark ORANGE, lol!

Reine des Violiette does often turn a kind of smoky blue for me. Blue Girl was lavender with pink undertones. There's nothing really truly blue but if you know that going in and except it there are lots of beautiful roses with blue in their names.

Part of the problem I gather for hybridizers is that the blue gene will not hold
in a rose so that is why we have purple roses and lavender roses but no blue roses.

Blue for You



I do have to say that within the late afternoon, when the rose faded, it turned the most ugly shade of grey you ever saw. Blue for You is with me no longer due to that. Blech!

Well, that is one reason that I have steered clear of growing
lavender and purple roses because here in Houston, TX with
the heat and humidity they tend to get black spot pretty badly.

You are right, Will. There is no blue gene in roses naturally and when they try to introduce it there is no way of knowing where it will present itself, blue leaves, blue stem or blue flowers? And if it does present will it be stable or just do it once and revert? Genetics is a very iffy business. I know the Japanese have been trying to do this for a while, and they're pretty good at it, but have not been able to create a stable truly blue rose. I believe I read the gene they are trying to splice in is from blue pansies!

I was told by somebody that Midnight Blue was as close as it gets.
Midnight Blue

It should be called Midnight Purple.

Seil is right, the geneticists have been working on this for YEARS with no luck. I'm a floral designer and my questions is always, Why do we need a blue rose? Blue is an incredibly challenging color in flowers, with it always skewing towards purple or gray even in delphinium and I've never had an occasion where all I needed was a true blue rose. Whenever I have clients who want blue, we look at all the options for real blue flowers and that usually satisfies them. Blue Moon spray roses actually complement blue flowers beautifully as do the pale lavenders that lean gray but of course that's a different setting than a garden. I'm partial to iris for smokey blues and foliage in blue green to bring in those colors to my beds.

I would thing the closest they might get is with a
blue ranunculus because their flowers look a lot
like an old garden rose bloom.

I agree, Sulli. I don't see any real need for a blue rose. Or a black one for that matter. I think the colors they come in now are all beautiful as they are.

I'm sure they have tried different things, Will. It all depends on what genetic material is compatible I suppose.

seilMI said:Rosemary, watch out for those package pics. The colors are often off by a lot. The catalogs are too a lot of the time. They always put the MOST glorious pictures to lure you in! I also found on the ones that are sitting outside at the stores that the pics have faded out a lot from the sun. I bought what I thought was going to be a beautiful soft peach rose once that turned out to be glow- in-the-dark ORANGE, lol!

Reine des Violiette does often turn a kind of smoky blue for me. Blue Girl was lavender with pink undertones. There's nothing really truly blue but if you know that going in and except it there are lots of beautiful roses with blue in their names.

I completely agree with seilMI! Why is that advertisers always lie about purple/blue plants? So many times I have ordered a plant which appeared online or on a package photo as purple (my favorite color, and overwhelmingly the main color I plant in my garden,) only to find that the plant actually blooms deep red (my least favorite color!) Is it just a rare or difficult to breed color?

Hybridizers have been playing with the colors for centuries! It just depends on what color genes are available in each type of flower. Now days they can add genes but that's still experimental.

As for advertisers, well, they just want to sell product any way they can. All ad photos are Photoshopped to look their best. Have you ever gotten a Whopper that looked like the one on the TV, lol?!

Have you ever gotten a Whopper that looked like the one on the TV, lol?!" I totally got your point haha. However, more and more often I see blue roses of such a gorgeous color! And they're not just visually striking; they carry a rich tapestry of symbolism. Blue roses symbolize the allure of the mysterious and unattainable. They're often associated with new opportunities, new beginnings, or even the enchantment of the unknown. If you're as fascinated as I am by their deep meaning, check out this detailed article about significance of rose colors. It dives deep into their story and symbolism.

privlil5, and some think they are real (I have gotten them sent to me on social media) but we here know they are Photoshopped and are fake.

Or they stuck a cut white rose in a vase of blue food color.

As for real roses, I tend to vote for Rhapsody in Blue and Blue For You as the most "blue". The others like Blue Bayou, Blue Girl, Blue Moon, etc. sometimes have a hint of blue-ish in their lavender.