Rose
of the Month #12
By Gaird Hamilton
ROSA
RUGOSA RUBRA
I am writing this in the aftermath of a huge
very wet, wild, and windy storm. We spent a day without electricity
during which I used a chainsaw to cut away the sections of two trees
which fell across our neighbors driveway, and the driveway beyond that.
The wind blew the roof off of our chicken pen, and blew three miniature
roses off of the rail in our arbor which went splat on the deck below.
How could I pick a Rose of the Month?
Actually the weather combined with the fact that
we are quite a ways behind in our gardening chores made the decision
an easy one to make. What rose is the easiest to care for, needing no
spraying, no pruning unless you want to shape it a little, likes it
fine without fertilizer, will grow right down to the sandy beaches along
the seacoast, and yet can take the cold frozen climate of places like
Bend, Oregon, where you can walk on frozen ponds in the winter, where
it gets well below zero, and where we got our rosa rugosa rubra. It
was a few small rooted stems from the edge of a nice big bush which
we brought home and planted near our water tank. That was in 1996, and
that was the last work which we had to do on it. Oh, we had to cut some
of the branches out of the path a time or two, but in return it has
grown to about eight feet tall, has the most beautiful leaves ever put
on a rose, has a continuous show of magenta-purple very large single
flowers, and follows that up with an abundant display of large orange
hips which are a show in themselves. We made some very fine rose hip
tea from them this winter, great for health.
Rosa Rugosa Rubra is a species rose and is rated
a 9.2 in the Handbook for Selecting Roses. For purposes of showing it
in a rose show, it’s date is considered to be 1784, and it does
sometimes win awards. For a guy who right now is feeling kind of tired,
it’s easy care, healthy natural beauty makes it sound like a perfect
rose.
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