ROSES (WILD)

Wild Roses
>by Harry McGee
>In the dawn of creation, roses had five petals – and so they remained throughout
pre-history. The simple, single, sweetly-scented rose is the essence of the
rose – a thing of beauty – a joy forever. The musk and eglantine of
Shakespeare’s experience, and the gallica Burns compared to his love, had five
petals. And they were survivors – hardy and healthy in their environment.
>We call them
wild roses, yet they have such evocative power as to move Edward MacDowell to
compose a tone poem “To a Wild Rose”. His contemporary, Ellen
Willmott devoted a part of her life to them in the writing of her scholarly
work The Genus Rosa.
In it she described 154 wild or species roses. It was ably illustrated by
artist Alfred Parsons. Poets, composers, authors, artists and an empress
– all these were drawn to wild roses. Our garden, Rosebank, is home to
several and I would like to interest you in sharing their enjoyment.
>There are three native
Canadian wild roses that I would recommend for that special place in your
garden. The first isRosa acicularis, the emblem of Alberta, a modest little plant covered with
soft prickles which blooms earlier in the spring than all other roses except
‘Father Hugo’. About a metre (39 inches) high its simple pink flowers are
followed by scarlet hips which birds consume before winter. If your soil is
acidic, it will need the encouragement of a little horticultural lime to remind
it of home. And if it feels very comfortable, it will sucker underground. These
can be dug out and given to your friends to begin new plants.
>The second I
have valued for a long time is Rosa blanda. It is also called the Hudson’s Bay and Labrador Rose. It
has the remarkable quality of being nearly thornless, and has passed that
characteristic to its progeny ‘Thérèse Bugnet’. They both share
the rich mahogany red colour of their newer canes. This is a modest growing
shrubby rose not exceeding four feet and it blooms a bit later than acicularis. That is fortunate because it can be
used in flower arrangements at rose shows.
>A few years ago,
in my home rose show, I registered to enter the decorative class for
wildflowers. I took the antique pitcher from my family’s washstand set; it is
big! I cut three branches from blanda and held them erect in the pitcher with a puff of poultry
netting. Then from our roadsides I filled it airily with colour compatible
yarrow, wild phlox etc., and trained purple vetch aimlessly over the edge. A
sprig of blanda flowers inserted in a flower pick camouflaged with a bit of sphagnum was laid
on the table close to the pitcher. It hit the judges right. Try it. It was a very
satisfying, expansive, unsophisticated celebration of nature, but by the end of
the day blanda was
beginning to shed pink petals on the show table.
>The third wild
rose I can recommend is Rosa nutkana. Tallest by quite a bit, be sure to place it near the rear
of your garden. In its third year, mine grew to eight feet. Its blooming time
is between acicularis and blanda, and has the
largest flowers. Peter Beales of Norwich, England, says in his book Classic
Roses, Holt Rinehart and
Winston, NY, 1985 “I grow to like this species more and more”. Later
in his Roses, Henry
Holt, NY 1992 he admits “one of my favourite species”. Its new wood
is mahogany punctuated with relatively few spines. It is native on the west coast
of our country.
>All these roses
bloom in clusters, and then produce clusters of attractive scarlet hips which
in the case ofblanda and nutkana hang on all
winter. I put a floodlight on them at Christmas.
>One of the most
attractive features of these roses is their autumn leaf colouring. When September
rolls around these roses are busy turning their foliage to orange and gold. You
know then that they are getting ready for a Canadian winter; all the water in
their cells moves out so it doesn’t destroy the cells when the water freezes. I
look around to see which modern hybrids are doing the same and I know then which
are winter hardy.
>Where can you get
these roses? Depending on where you live you may find them in the wild. I
brought my acicularis home from a visit with my grandchildren in the Chilcotin area of BC. Blanda and nutkana I ordered from Pickering Nurseries, 670
Kingston Rd. Pickering ON L1V 1A6. Mr. Joseph Schraven and his son
Joel have built this business since the former came to Canada from the
Netherlands in 1950. Their second name is reliability. Over 800 roses, modern,
antique and rare, are listed in their catalog.
>In the next
issue, I plan to recommend several roses which are noted for their single or
nearly single flowers – some are non-native species, some are shrubs,
some are even hybrid teas.
>© Harry
McGee 1996 – published with permission from The
Rosebank Letter, No. 4, March 1996 and minimally abridged by the author