Commercially available

• Orient Silk ™

33 favorite votes.  

Medium yellow Hybrid Tea.
Registration name: Ahimsa
Exhibition name: Ahimsa

Bred by M.S. Viraraghavan (India, before 1996).
Introduced in Canada by Hortico Inc. in 1996 as 'Orient Silk'.

Hybrid Tea.  

Yellow.  Moderate fragrance.  26 to 40 petals.  Average diameter 5".  Very large, full (26-40 petals), borne mostly solitary bloom form.  Blooms in flushes throughout the season.  

Few or no prickles/thorns, upright.  Large, semi-glossy, medium green foliage.  

Height: 3' (90cm).  

USDA zone 6b through 9b (default).  

“Ahimsa’ means ‘non-violence’ in Sanskrit, which is a basic tenet of Hinduism and Buddhism. It was the tenet very strictly adhered to by Mahatma Gandhi when he was waging a peaceful non-violent movement against the British Empire in India, ‘fighting’ for independence.
When we realized that this variety, a cross of Madame Charles Sauvage x (Pink Parfait x Royal Gold) had no prickles at all, we felt this would be a good name for this yellow hybrid tea rose ( especially as we had just finished a bout of rose pruning, and cutting the stems of ‘Ahimsa’ were, by comparison, such a pleasure!)