I hope this post helps to clear up some of the confusion about cabbage roses verses traditional roses. Over the last few years I have seen a significant increase in the prices of my designs and so have my clients. The biggest culprit or reason for this is the new found obsession with garden roses. Okay, so its not a new found obsession because garden roses or cabbage roses have always been the rage. Garden roses are the roses you see in famous paintings by Renoir, or Van Gogh. However, these roses were not readily available to designers and you typically did not see them in traditional wedding work. In the last few years cabbage roses were made available, all be it, in a very limited supply.  When designers like myself started using cabbage roses in their creations these designs became highly published, pinned, blogged and sought after. This caused the garden rose to become the most desired flower for weddings. I truly believe the love of the cabbage rose has even surpassed the love of the peony. The most sought after cabbage rose is the David Austin Rose. This is the Gucci, or Louis Vuitton of roses. Seriously, a David Austin rose is a branded and labeled rose. David Austin roses make my heart sing, but they are seriously expensive and remember there is a limited supply of these beauties. I am all for using cabbage roses, especially David Austin, but clients need to understand that one cabbage rose is equivalent to 3.5 regular roses. That is right, a true branded and marked garden rose is 3.5 times more expensive then a regular rose. So here are the pictures to help you grasp the difference.

This is a simple design of hydrangea and deutzia from my garden. This design features 7 David Austin peach juliet roses. Juliet roses, fast became the superstar of the cabbage roses. It’s hard to find a peach bouquet on pinterest that does not feature this rose.

I took the same design and removed the peach juliet roses and then added 24, yes 24 regular roses.

The only difference between the two designs was the amount of roses I was able to use. I had intended to make the design with 24 of the same pale peach roses but I actually ran out of the soft peach roses and added in 5 of a stronger coral tone. This actually brought up a good point, when you are using  24 roses instead of 7 roses, you can actually introduce two colors of roses into your design, giving you even more bang for you buck.

All of these pictures indicate the exact same value. Prepare to get 3.5 regular roses to every single cabbage rose. Talk about a celebrity or a status symbol and that would be the garden rose!!