Former President Mandela, who passed away on 5 December 2013, would have turned 100 on 18 July 2018. 

The Nelson Mandela rose was released to launch the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s year-long centenary programme, just a week ahead of Valentine’s Day on 14 February. 

Foundation CE Sello Hatang said the Nelson Mandela 100 programme centres on the values embodied by Mandela, of resilience, service and care. 

The values of service and care appeared to be diminishing in contemporary South Africa, but he hoped the Mandela rose would serve as a reminder “that we are because of others”. 

Horticulturist Keith Kirsten, who led the rose’s development, said the idea for the plant came to him in 2000, while on a flight to New York when he happened to be sitting next to Achmat Dangor, the then CEO of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. 

The idea was shelved for various reasons until 2014 when the Foundation approached him about it. 

The disease-resilient rose is a tall, orange-vermillion, prolific floribunda, which grows to more than a metre in good conditions and is suitable for “any sunny position”, according to Kirsten.

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