Regional Growing Guide: Pacific Northwest

Recipe: Sugared Rose Petals
Ingredients:
    1 cup miniature rose petals, various colors
    1 cup sugar
    3/4 cup water
    Cracked ice
    Confectioners sugar

Preparation:
Wash organically grown miniature rose petals in clear water and dry on wire racks or paper towels. Trim away tough, bitter ends.

Combine sugar and water in saucepan and boil until mixture reaches 234 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Pour the simple syrup into a bowl that you've set on a bed of cracked ice.

As syrup begins to harden, hold petals with tongs or chopsticks and coat evenly with syrup. Dry sugared petals on waxed paper.

Dust with sifted confectioners or castor (fine grained) sugar. The sugar can be colored with food coloring to match the hue of the petals.

Serve sugared rose petals over ice cream, creme brulee, as decorations on cakes, or as garnish for dessert plates.

Book: Shrub Roses of Today
If you're interested in learning about shrub roses, Shrub Roses of Today, by Graham Stuart Thomas, will get you going in the right direction. Thomas, who also illustrated this beautiful book, has covered more than 350 varieties of shrub roses and included chapters on fragrance, cultivation and pruning, wild species and their hybrids, and the evolution of uses of modern hybrid shrub roses.