![]() ![]() Such flowers are also a great boon for pollinating insects: where most roses are low in pollen and hide what little they have away in a ruffle of petals, these are brimming with the stuff, and make it easy for the insects to access, laying their flowers open in the sun.Īll this pollinating activity then leads to a great many hips being set, and the relative brevity of the flowering period is well compensated from early autumn when wild roses are studded with red, purple or brown hips. Wild roses lean strongly towards the former, though their displays can be a little longer than fussier roses with the same flowering pattern, the simplicity of the flowers making it less energy-consuming for the plant to produce lots. Roses roughly fall into two modes of flowering: those that give one big, brief, glorious display, and those that putter along throughout summer. Their flowers may not be big in themselves but they are produced en masse, and so the display is as impressive as, or more so than, a plant with a smaller number of large flowers. They have a more rustic presence than most roses, and are more charming with it, bringing with them an essence of summer countryside. They are oddly underused, however – we have been happy to leave wild roses to romp field boundaries and to consider them wild plants – but there is every reason to invite them in over the garden wall. None has been bred for masses of petals, big flowers or long stems, and so wild roses have a lightness, delicacy and elegance that makes them beautiful additions to a garden. If they have been subject to the breeder’s hand then it will have been with a light touch, carried out with the aim of delicately improving flower colour or habit while maintaining the plant’s wild essence. ![]() The simple flowers look like they should be stitched onto a medieval pennant, and their common names – dog rose, eglantine, briar rose, apothecary’s rose, rose of Lancaster – speak of their antiquity and the way they have been interwoven into our folklore for centuries.Īll of the so-called wild or species roses are either plants that you will find in the wild somewhere in the world, or close relatives. Just as the hawthorn and the cow parsley of May fade in our hedgerows, wild roses pick up the baton for June, producing great froths of small, simple white and pale pink flowers.īuzzing with bees, entwined with honeysuckle, they keep company with the summer hedgerow flowers now coming along: foxgloves, corncockles, herb robert and greater stitchwort.Īn integral part of the riot of wild flowers seen in our verges and field margins, there are several native roses in the UK, and they flower with abandon through late May and June.
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