A Seasonal Celebration of the Land, Garden & Nature
Midsummer, Wildflower Verges, Warmth & Light, Evening Walks, Summer's Height, Blackbirds Singing, Elderflower Scent, Fledglings, Roses, Bursting Colour
Issue 19 June 2020
Wild Roses
Rosa canina
"Wild roses are fairest & nature a better gardener than art"- Louisa May Allcot.
The flowers on this rose are exquisite, lightly fragrant and often soft pink - although their colour can range from strong 1980s-fuschia-pink through to white. The flowers have five petals with a circlet of golden yellow stamens in the middle, perfectly offset by the blue green leaves. Before the blooms open they are tight little rose buds flushed with pink that make sense of the descriptor 'rosebud lips'. Then in the Autumn the roses are followed by orange red hips.
It's a tough and reliable rose and although it prefers sunshine, it will grow in the shade. A great plant for wildlife, offering nectar for insects and bees in the summer, a protective habitat and food supply for birds and small mammals in the winter plus it's a foodplant for several moths and butterflies.
Herbalists use rose petals to calm and cool so good for itchy eyes in hayfever season. Also to calm and cool the senses, helping treat feelings of anxiety. The Autumn hips are high in vitamin C (allegedly 20 times more Vitamin C than in oranges) and can be made into a syrup to help fight colds and flu through the winter - I'll write about them in an Autumn blog.
These wild roses inspired William Shakespeare to include them in Oberon's famous quote from Midsummer Nights Dream:
"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine."
Rosa canina were known as eglantine in Shakespeare's time. Certainly the monikers wild rose, wild briar or eglatine conjur up a more romantic, bucolic image than this rose's latin name, which translates to dog rose, meaning inferior!
There's certainly nothing inferior about this rose's ability to climb. Its strongly hooked prickles allow it to weave in and out of other hedgerow shrubs using them to support its growth. Growth that can get up to 3m tall! That's why I don't tend to include dog roses in the native hedgerows I plant in clients' gardens - they take over and are liable to shred your hands when pruning!
I read a great sounding recipe for rose petal sandwiches, said to have been served at tea parties at Balmoral. Made like a normal sandwich with white bread with the crusts removed, buttered with rose-scented butter (put butter in a glass bowl with highly scented rose petals and leave overnight), overlaid with rose petals arranged so they peep out the sides of the sandwich and sprinkled with rose-scented caster sugar (caster sugar layered in a jar with highly scented rose petals and again left overnight). Fit for a queen! I'm intrigued to know what rose petal sandwiches taste like so let me know if you try them!
So next time you're out and about in the countryside see if you can spot these gorgeous native flowers. You can use this old riddle to help you identify dog roses:
"On a summer's day,in sultry weather
Five Brethren were born together.
Two had beards and two had none
And the other had but half a one."
- 'The Five Brethren of the Rose'
'Five Brethren' refers to the five sepals (the green leaf shaped parts that surround the buds), two of which are whiskered on both sides, two smooth and the last one whiskered only on one side!
However you decide to spend your days do try and get outside safely if you can - in your garden, or on a balcony or outside away from others under big skies. Let me know what June highlights you spot and/or photograph.
If you have any questions you can reach me via my website www.plotgardendesign.co.uk and please follow/like PLOT Garden Design on social media to receive my seasonal updates and photos.
Keep well, breathe and remember to look outside and notice the details.
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