Rosa "Doncasteri" hips - a good display

I have written before about Mr Doncaster's rose with its lovely flush of pink flowers early in the spring. Well now it is in hip - and beautiful hips they are too - like bright shiny chilli peppers hanging on the bush. Some people are loath to give these nearly wild shrubs room in the garden as they don't flower all summer long. But would we expect rhododendrons to flower all summer long? Yet people are all too keen to give them houseroom, and they don't even have bright red hips.

Rosa "Doncasteri" gives bright flowers in abundance in June and graces us with elegant arching sprays of foliage in July. By August the hips are already ripening and delighting us again.

A very well worthwhile rose!

Rosa gallica "Officinalis" - the Apothecary Rose

Rose gallica is a European wild rose, a small shrub (usually less that 4 ft) and by convention considered red (actually more a deep reddish pink). A semi-double form "Officinalis" (see photograph, left) is one of the earliest recoded cultivated roses. It has many names, for instance: "The Provins Rose" (after the beautiful medieval town of Provins just outside Paris), or simply "The Red Rose". It is also the rose with the best claim to being the "Red Rose of Lancaster", the symbol of one of the warring factions in the wars of the roses.

The semi-double form is said to have originated in Damascus and been taken from thence by the crusader King Theobald in 1240 - taken back to his castle at Provins hence the name "Provins rose".

It has a fruity (rather than musky) scent, similar to the scent of Rosa damascena, and is a lovely garden plant. Its small size means that it can easily be used in flower borders and even to edge them, as it can be clipped into a lax low hedge. In Hidcote garden in England the striped form "Versicolor" has been used like this - to fabulous effect.

During the 19th century it spawned many sports and hybrids. The best of these (and all are my favourites!) are: "Belle de Crécy", "Cardinal de Richelieu" "Charles de Mills" and "Tuscany Superb". However, there is much to be said for the true original Apothecary Rose, and even for the wild single red rose. In Miss Jekyll's time the gallica roses were considered dépassé. She wrote about them only briefly in her chapter on the "Old Garden Roses":

"[The rose] Provins is Rosa gallica, the garden kinds being mostly striped; pretty, but not of the first importance..."

Being such an ancient variety, it became firmly embedded in medieval European culture. The red rose (Rosa gallica) and the lily (Lilium candidum) are described by the monk Walafrid Strabo (808 - 849 CE) in his poem "Hortulus". He makes it clear that the red of Rosa gallica had entered into Christian iconography as symbolizing the blood of the martyrs.

"These two flowers, well loved and honoured far and wide

Down many centuries have stood as emblems

Of the greatest treasures of the Church - the Rose plucked

As a sign of the blood shed by the blessed martyrs;

The Lily worn as a shining symbol of faith."

Similarly, when Hubert van Eyck (c. 1385 – 1426) set out to paint the great altarpiece at Ghent ("The Adoration of the Lamb"), his panel depicting the male martyrs has them standing by a red rose, using the same symbolism described by Strabo. It is commonly assumed that the red rose was also a symbol of Christ's passion. Actually there is little evidence of this. The standard symbol of the Passion during the Middle Ages was the heraldic pelican - pecking its breast to feed its young with its own blood.

The name "Apothecary rose" signifies correctly that this was by far the most important rose in ancient medicine. Nicholas Culpeper (1616 - 1654) in his Complete Herbal, always quick to criticise his contemporaries, says (mischievously):

"What a pother have authors made with roses! What a racket have they kept? I shall add, red Roses [Rosa gallica] are under Jupiter, Damask [R. damascena] under Venus, White [R. alba] under the moon and Provence [R. centifolia] under the King of France."

The Mt Emei rose, Rosa omeiensis

Rosa omeiensis is an elegant early flowering rose known for its sprays of small creamy usually four-petalled flowers, ferny leaves with many leaflets and triangular prickles.

From Mt Emei in Sichuan came this variety. Mount Emei is one of the four sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism and at 3099 metres is the highest of the four. The others are Mt Wutai in Shanxi, Mt Jiuhua in Anhui and Mt Putuo in Zhejiang.

If Rosa omeiensis comes from Mt Emei, why is it not called "Rosa emeiensis"? The answer is simple, at the time it was discovered the standard romanization system for Chinese characters was the Wade-Giles, which renders the Chinese name Omei. However in the Pinyin system, standard today for the romanization of Mandarin Chinese, it is Emei.

It is generally considered a variety of Rosa sericea which ranges from northern India to central China and is quite variable. The Flora of China however keeps R. sericea and R. omeiensis separate. R. omeiensis has a more northerly distribution and more succulently fleshy fruits. The fleshy part of the hip often continues down into the pedicels of R. omeiensis, making the hips conspicuously pear-shaped, whereas the hip of R. sericea is globose with normal pedicels. Rosa sericea has fewer pairs of leaflets, which are densely sericeous beneath, whereas in R. omeiensis the leaflets are either glabrous or somewhat pubescent beneath. Large-prickled forms of both these roses occur.

Roses for Wet Sites

It is commonly written that roses are not for poorly drained sites. They hate getting their feet wet and growing them under wet conditions is a sure recipe for blackspot and disaster. Well, not so fast.

That may be true of garden roses with dry-loving Mediterranean species in their parentage, but actually a large group of North American wild roses are wetland plants, or at least occur in riparian (stream-bank) habitats. Rosa palustris, as its name implies is a trues swamp species, occurring in marshes, bogs, swamplands in eastern north America. The swamp rose of western north America is Rosa pisocarpa.

In the high rainfall areas of southern China roses must be tolerant of seasonal flooding and one of these is Rosa multiflora. Where this has been introduced into North American it has become a pest in wet riparian areas. Another Asian species that is adapted to wet subtropical conditions is Rosa clinophylla of Burma and Nepal.

The good news is that cultivated roses derived from these wild roses should be tolerant of at least seasonal wetness. Boggy gardens need not be rose-free.

Swamp roses of North America

• Rosa palustris
• Rosa pisocarpa

Wet-tolerant and riparian roses of North America

• Rosa virginiana
• Rosa nitida
• Rosa acicularis
• Rosa carolina
• Rosa woodsii

Wet-tolerant Asian roses

• Rosa multiflora
• Rosa clinophylla (monsoon climate of Burma)

Types of wild rose for the garden

Chapter 5 (extract 2) of "Roses for English Gardens" by Jekyll and Mawley (1902), in which Miss Jekyll lists the garden-worthy wild roses.

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Illustration: Rosa arvensis

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There are, of course, a great many species of Roses, and numbers of them are only plants for botanical collections. Only those that concern the garden in the type form, and those that are the parents of garden varieties, are here named and briefly described.

• Rosa acicularis — A Rose with bright pink bloom and glaucous foliage; a native of Siberia; it is pretty and interesting, flowering at the end of May.
• R. alba — Not considered a real species though the name is usually admitted in botanical classification. Semi-double white, with handsome bluish leaves. The double White Rose of cottage gardens, Maiden's Blush and Celeste are among its garden varieties.
• R. alpina — A native of Europe and parent of the Boursault Roses. The mature stems are red and without prickles. The bright red hips are very long in shape.
• R. altaica — The representative of our native Burnet Rose (R. spinosissima) in Northern Central Asia. A beautiful garden bush with lemon-white flowers.
• R. arvensis — One of our own hedge Roses; a large single bloomed variety of extra rambling habit and some half double ones are good garden plants.
• R. Banksiae — A rambling Chinese Rose without prickles, best known in England by the double yellow form.
• R. beggeriana — From Central Asia; a bush with small glabrous leaves and small, white, unpleasant-smelling flowers; an interesting kind though not showy.
• R. blanda — North American. Called also the Hudson's Bay or Labrador Rose; a good-sized bush with large pink flowers.
• R. bracteata — From China. The Macartney Rose, with large white blooms and handsome poUshed leaves. There is also a double variety called Marie Leonide which is stronger growing than the type.
• R. Carolina — A North American species, not of the first importance, and yet of some value in that it blooms in late summer and autumn.
• R. centifolia — The type of the Cabbage or Provence Roses, of the Moss Roses and the small de Meaux.
• R. cinnamomea — The double form is the Cinnamon Rose of our older gardens. The flowers are rather few, pink or pale rose, and flattened.
• R. clynophylla — A white-flowered trailing Rose of scrambling habit; scarcely suitable for a garden, but good for a wild place.
• R. damascena — (Damask). A good old garden Rose of oriental origin, with several varieties, red, white and striped.
• R. Ecae — A tender Rose from Abyssinia, with yellow flowers the size of a shilling. It does well occasionally in the south of England.
• R. gallica — The type of most of the older garden Roses. This and the Damask Rose are no doubt the ancestors of the modern Hybrid Perpetuals. Pretty bushes in many varieties.
• R. humilis.—A white Rose. R. humilis rugosa is an excellent bush garden Rose with pink flowers.
• R. indica — The type of the China Rose, but there are other forms of R. indica that are apparently the types of some of the Teas.
• R. laevigata — A native of China; it makes a good pillar or climbing Rose in the south of England, though it is better in France. It has shining leaves and large white flowers.
• R. lucida — A well-known garden Rose from North America, with shining leaves and rose-coloured flowers. It grows into bushy masses. The double variety, though not common, is very beautiful.
• R. lutea — An oriental yellow Brier, the origin of the double Persian yellow, and of the Austrian Copper.
• R. macrantha — Single large rose coloured; a wild hybrid of canina and gallica.
• R. macrophylla — A handsome, tall growing Rose with many large, full-pink flowers. It makes a good pillar Rose and deserves to be more generally planted.
• R. microphylla — A Chinese Rose with buff-coloured wood and straight, sharp, gooseberry-like prickles. The bud is curious from the prickly calyx. The double variety is a handsome flat flower, light pink, with crimson centre.
• R. mollis pomifera — The Apple-bearing Rose of older gardens. The foliage is soft and bluish, the flowers pink and the hips large and handsome.
• R. moschata = R. Brunoni — A rambling Himalayan Rose of great beauty, bearing a quantity of clustered white bloom and having graceful bluish foliage. Best used to ramble through trees and bushes.
• R. multifiora = polyantha — Of eastern Asiatic origin. It makes large bushy brakes by itself and is the parent of many of our best rambling Roses.
• R. omissa — An erect bush with pink flowers and grey, softly pubescent leaves. A pretty and interesting Rose.
• R. pisocarpa — A rather straggling Californian bush, flowering in corymbs. The leaves are glabrous and the flowers pink or red.
• R. Pissardi — A handsome Persian Rose with white bloom.
• R. rubiginosa — The native Sweet-brier. In the type form an indispensable Rose. The beautiful Penzance hybrids derived from it should be in every garden.
• R. rugosa — The Japanese Ramanas Rose. One of the hardiest of Roses. There are good garden forms and hybrids. The hips are the showiest of any known Rose.
• R. rubrifolia — An European Rose with small red flowers and red stems and leaves; very near R. alpina.
• R. sempervirens — A wild Italian Rose, the parent of many of our older cluster and rambling Roses. The leaves are small and polished and endure through the greater part of the winter.
• R. setigera — The latest to bloom of the wild Roses. From North America. Flowers magenta-rose. It makes a good pillar Rose.
• R. simplicifolia = berberifolia — A small and tender yellow Rose, requiring a sheltered place against a warm wall.
• R. spinosissima — The native Burnet Rose, type of the well known Scotch Briers.
• R. wichuriana — A trailing Japanese species with small, polished, deep green leaves and white flowers. Beautiful hybrids are now being derived from it.

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LINK: The origin of Garden roses from wild species

Old Garden Roses - Rosa cinnamomea (the Whitsuntide Rose) and Rosa rubiginosa (the old Sweet Brier)

Chapter 2 (extract 3) of "Roses for English gardens" by Jekyll and Mawley (1902), in which Miss Jekyll discusses the Whitsuntide Rose, a beautiful American wild rose, as well as the old English favourite, the Sweet Brier.

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An old Rose that used to be in nearly every garden and is now but rarely seen is the Cinnamon Rose (R. cinnamomea), in some parts of the southern counties called the Whitsuntide Rose. The small flat flowers are pretty and have a distinct scent. It makes a neat bush of rather upright habit. An equally old garden Rose is R. lucida, an American species. It is fairly common in old gardens, forming rounded bushes, and will grow anywhere even in the poorest soils, where the autumn tinted foliage, bright yellow and crimson, and the quantities of flat-shaped scarlet hips are very ornamental. The flower is single and of a full pink colour. It seems to like slight shade, as it shrivels in full sun. There is a strong growing garden variety, much more free in habit than the type, but it does not make such neat bushes. It is remarkable that a Rose so well known should have no English name. The double form that has been long in English gardens, but has never become common, and whose merit is only now becoming recognised, is one of the loveliest of bush Roses. It has the pretty old name Rose d'Amour.

How this Rose of American origin first came to be a plant of old English gardens is a question that I must leave to be answered by the botanist-antiquary; what chiefly concerns us is that it is one of the most delightful things in the garden.

The Scotch Briers are considered in the chapter on Brier Roses, and the newer Sweet Briers in that of New Garden Roses, though the old pink single Sweet Brier is, of course, in place here. Many are the ways in which it can be used. Planted in a double row and judiciously pruned, it makes a capital and most fragrant hedge from four to six feet high ; but it is perhaps prettiest planted among shrubs, with its graceful arching stems shooting up through them, or in bushy brakes either by itself or among Thorn bushes in one of the regions where the garden joins wilder ground. It will also assume quite a climbing habit if it is led into some tree like a Holly, or encouraged to scramble through straggling Black or White Thorn of tallish growth in some old hedge.

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See also:

Old Garden Rose - The cabbage or Provence Rose (Rosa centifolia) and the Provins rose (Rosa gallica)

Old Garden Roses - The damask rose

Old Garden Roses - Rosa alba

Old Garden Roses - Rosa alpina and Rosa arvensis

Old Garden Roses - the Banksian Roses and the China Roses

Old Garden Roses - Fortune's Yellow and certain other old roses

A list of the best Old Garden Roses