Rose of Lima was born to a noble family and is the patron saint of embroidery, gardening and cultivation of blooming flowers.

She was born as Isabel Flores de Oliva in the city of Lima, then in the Viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish Empire, on 20 April 1586.

She was one of eleven children of Gaspar Flores [es], a harquebusier in the Imperial Spanish army whose family were from Baños de Montemayor, Cáceres, Spain and later travelled to Puerto Rico.

[4] As a young girl, in emulation of the noted Dominican tertiary Catherine of Siena, she began to fast three times a week and performed severe penances in secret.

When she was admired for her beauty, Rose cut off her hair and rubbed peppers on her face, upset that men were beginning to take notice of her.

Despite the censure of her parents, she spent many hours contemplating the Blessed Sacrament, which she received daily, an extremely rare practice in that period.

She wanted to become a nun, but her father forbade it, so she instead entered the Third Order of St. Dominic while living in her parents' home.

[7] For eleven years she lived this way, with intervals of ecstasy, and eventually died on 24 August 1617, at the young age of 31, after a long illness.

[1] Her shrine, alongside those of her friends Martin de Porres and John Macias, is currently located inside of the convent of Saint Dominic in Lima.

Pope Benedict XIII wrote "Concentus Dominicano, Bononiensis ecclesia, in album Sanctorum Ludovici Bertrandi et Rosae de Sancta Maria, ordinero praedicatorum" (Venice, 1674).

[12] In the Caribbean twin-island state of Trinidad and Tobago, the Santa Rosa Carib Community, located in Arima, is the largest organization of indigenous peoples on the island.

Also, in Sibbe, Netherlands, a maypole dedicated to Saint Rose is erected on the first Saturday after the 23rd of August by the local Jonkheid.