Rosa virginiana-Virginia rose

Description

For a few glorious weeks in June, we have three of our native roses flowering at once, in slightly overlapping intervals, including VA rose. (Coincidentally, the invasive multiflora rose is flowering at the same time! Impossible to confuse when in flower, multi-flora rose has many smaller bright white flowers. All of our native roses are pink and the flowers are about 3x bigger.) VA Rose, our go-to native rose species is tolerant of sandy, salty, poor soils, and even salt spray from ocean. A good choice for those “hell strip” areas right next to the road that get sand, salt, soil compaction and beatings from the snow plow. On the flip-side, VA rose is amiable to loamy, better garden soils too. This is a good native replacement for the ubiquitous beach rose (Rosa rugosa), our default species for ocean side planting for so many years. (I’m going off on a tangent here; rugosa rose is so widespread and has been for so long, that it’s the quintessential rose people associate with oceanside areas. It is non-native, hailing from Japan and eastern Asia, and has been imported and growing here for possibly hundreds of years. In Maine it is now considered “quasi-evil”, to quote Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movie franchise. It can be commercially sold, but signs must be in place explaining it can be “invasive in certain habitats” i.e. near the ocean. It isn’t on the full blown naughty list, Maine’s  Invasive Plant Do Not Sell List, but close.)