War of the roses: which new book about the history, lore and love of roses is better?

Genus monographs, nursery catalogues and botanical history books go far in extolling certain plants, and celebrating their beautiful, sometimes beguiling variations of form, flower and function.

Every now and then, however, the inherent, complex and fundamentally human obsession with flowers requires a different kind of interrogation – an unpicking and a taking stock of just why, throughout history (and universally across the globe), we have been compelled to covet, grow, gather and gift them with such fervour.

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Here, the particulars of site, soil and propagation are laid aside in favour of broader questions: what drives us to cultivate flowers? What induces galanthophilia? What delusions of commerce in the 17th century saw tulips valued higher than houses? The reasoning might well prove biological – a magnetism we share with the bees – but its expression can only be explored through the cultural perspective, and explore we must.

Two new books have set about the challenge of examining the universal obsession with perhaps the best-loved of all flowers: the rose.

The first, The Rose Book, comes from trusted publisher of creative arts, Phaidon. Upholding the weightiness and visual decadence associated with all Phaidon titles, this latest coffee-table deep dive considers the rose through artistic depictions spanning the centuries.

Bookended with digestible essays contextualising roses in history, fashion, perfume and language (contributed by notable authorities including fashion curator Amy de la Haye and the Royal florist Shane Connolly), The Rose Book presents a collection of artworks as visually diverse as they are diverse of discipline. Paint, print, sculpture, photography, metal and needlework all feature; space is even made for rose motifs and musings in architecture, mosaic and stained glass.

Each leaves you with a clear comprehension of why the rose – conceivably more than any other plant in history – is woven so tightly and profoundly through our collective conscience.

In place of a chronological structure, interesting and unlikely pairings are made throughout the page spreads, finding common ground between rose-related works by artists as divergent as Georgia O’Keeffe, Alexander McQueen and Sandro Botticelli.

As one might flit between the considered hangings of an exhibition, the reader moves, absorbed, from an exquisitely detailed 18th-century watercolour to a heavily stylised 1930s woodcut; from a sumptuous still life by a Dutch master to Tiffanie Turner’s 2022 paperwork tower of browning rose petals.

All the while, fascinating yet clipped text enriches each work, explaining, for example, how Ralph Portillano’s beautifully pressed Viridiflora rose bears associations with the abolitionist movement in 19th-century America; and how roses convey a sense of fragility in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller, Vertigo.

Similarly, Roses in the Garden, written and illustrated by renowned New York-based photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo, employs a reflective approach to this vast and varied subject. Following the death of her father, an avid rose grower, she journeyed through gardens the world over – both new and old – immersing in the roses that thrive therein.

Once again, far from a monograph, Ngoc’s comprehensive examination of the rose is told through her own voice and those whose gardens are enriched by them. ‘At the end of a day spent photographing roses’, she writes, ‘their perfume – an ineffable combination of sweet, spicy, fruity, myrrh, and citrus scent – lingers on my hands and pervades my dreams’.

We have been compelled to covet, grow, gather and gift them with such fervour.

And as with all of Ngoc’s garden photography, the resulting images are indeed dreamlike. Across the book’s 11 chapters she exquisitely captures the shifting apricot and copper hues of Rosa x odorata ‘Mutabilis’ at Italy’s crumbling Giardino di Ninfa; the tree- scaling roses of Umberto Pasti’s romantic garden in Morocco; the cascades of rambling Rosa ‘Wedding Day’ at the entrance of Château de la Rongère in France, and flares of R. ‘Scharlachglut’ in garden designer Dan Pearson’s meadow in Somerset.

What both books share is the ability to combine extensive representation of rose species and cultivars with a fresh take on their exposition. Each leaves you with a clear comprehension of why the rose – conceivably more than any other plant in history – is woven so tightly and profoundly through our collective conscience.

Reviewer Matt Collins is a garden writer and head gardener at the Garden Museum.