I’ve always said that roses are the hardest working shrubs in the garden. From the earliest in spring, they provide ornamental interest to the garden, plus food and habitat for insects, birds and other wildlife. In the fall and winter, they demonstrate this work ethic with their ripening fruit – the rose hip. As I…
I don’t have a very good excuse for pairing these two roses together: one’s a gallica, the other a rambler, one has huge flowers, and the other has tiny ones. However, they were both in bloom on the back fence of our farm at the same time, so let’s just call it a marriage of…
The earliest group of roses to bloom in my landscape are the Scots roses and their close relatives. For those who are not familiar with this group of roses, they deserve a formal introduction – but maybe skip the handshake on account of the thorniness. The species rose that they are all related to is…
‘Altissimo’ was flowering early this season – and that’s when I first wrote about this distinctive rose. The trick is that ‘Altissimo’ never stopped blooming. When selecting roses for the local farmer’s market, I had a hard time not bringing this rose every week. The individual flowers don’t last too long, but the rose reblooms so quickly and…
This tough little species rose has the honor of being the first species in my greenhouse this year to put in a full flush of flowers. Sure, there’s the odd rose that has thrown a flower bud or two, but the Scotch Briar beats them out by filling its branches with flowers and buds. Here…
The simplicity of this rose makes me think that it’s close to a species rose, but nobody knows for sure. It’s classed as a gallica, maybe for lack of better information. While most near-species roses are nicest grown as a free standing shrub, I think you’ll find it rewarding to give ‘Complicata’ something to climb….
One of the great things about this species rose is that it’s attractive for more than one feature. The rose goes by more than one species name, the other common one being Rosa rubrifolia. Sometimes the latin name will reveal something about the plant, and in these two names, there’s a bit of a contradiction:…
