Roses are red (and yellow and blue and green and purple)... spectacular rainbow rose to be sold in Britain for the first time



Red ones mean passion and romance, yellow ones speak of friendship, and pink can express your thanks.

If you're feeling a little confused - or you want to keep a lady guessing - you could try sending these roses instead.

The multi-coloured flowers, known as rainbow roses or happy roses, are the latest thing in quirky gifts.

Bloomin' marvellous: Rainbow roses are non-artificial flowers also known as the happy rose. It uses a groundbreaking process where vibrant coloured plant extracts are injected into the stem

They start life as cream roses, but the heads take on hues from various food dyes placed in their water one at a time and sucked up the stems.

We know the process takes between 12 and 24 hours, but not how the different petals turn out different colours.



That remains a trade secret of their creator, Dutch florist Peter van de Werken, who branched out from creating brightly coloured chrysanthemums.

Happy roses: Happy roses: Millie Holland, 7, of Lichfield, Staffordshire holds a bunch of rainbow roses - the flowers start off cream and are dyed



Pick of the bunch: The rainbow rose is available in Britain for the first time. It was created when Dutch rose growers River Flowers and F.J. Zandbergen & Zn joined forces

He buys long-stemmed Vendela roses, dyes them and distributes them around the world. They still have their sweet smell and the flowers will last as long as normal roses, but the leaves may wither sooner.

More than a million were sold in a year, with key markets in Japan, Italy and particularly Sweden, where blue and yellow varieties mimic the national flag. Britons can buy them at online florist Interrose.co.uk.

However, they do not come cheap. One stem costs £24.49 and a dozen £64.87, more than double the price of 12 red roses.