Virginia Rose
Have you always loved roses, but hate the spraying, fertilizing, watering and pruning they require to keep them from looking a mess? Please meet the lovely Virginia rose (Rosa virginiana). Unlike its highly-bred, cultivated cousins (hybrid tea roses and modern cultivars of climbing roses) this native eastern rose is hardy to the coldest parts of New England, grows happily in almost any soil, needs little to to no irrigation except for rainwater, and blooms its head off through June with pink flowers with the most heavenly fragrance. Not to mention, their beautiful red fruits (hips) persist right through the winter, feeding birds and providing winter interest when the landscape is otherwise white and brown. What's not to love?
Most Virginia roses bloom in light or medium pink, although there are white-flowering cultivars available too (I've not had good experience with the white-flowering form, however). Their flowers might not have the fluffy allure of the larger double-formed hybrids, but their single-flowering form makes them much more attractive to butterflies and other pollinators, who don't have to fight their way through many layers of petals to access the sweet nectar and pollen at the center of the flower. And did I mention its fragrance?
When it's happy, which is in any decent soil with good drainage and plenty of sunshine, Virginia rose will spread fairly rapidly within just a few years, so if you have a large area you'd like to fill in quickly with a wildlife-friendly native plant, Virginia makes a great choice.
In bloom, a pink tapestry of Virginia rose mingles beautifully with foxglove, cranesbill and other late spring bloomers and will form a low, thorny hedge that offers excellent year-round predator protection for the birds visiting your gardens. This sunny hillside of our farm was planted with a single container of Virginia rose in 2006, and by June 2009 it had happily spread to form a sizeable thicket:
As you might imagine, its spreading habit (through underground roots that snake in every direction) makes Virginia rose unsuitable for small gardens, where its roots will eventually take over surrounding plants and form dense canes that shade them out. A better-behaved but just as pretty wild rose is Virginia's closest cousin, Carolina or pasture rose (R. carolina) which spreads by slowly enlarging clumps rather than spreading roots.
In the thicket above, an annual mowing stops Virginia rose runners from spreading into the adjacent lawn, but you can also contain its advancing roots with a hard root pruning every few years with a sharp shovel. A driveway also makes a good boundary, as long as you don't use large amounts of salt to de-ice your driveway.
Note: Please let it be known that I would dearly love for the above Virginia rose thicket to spread and cover the entire hill, but hubby has drawn a literal line in the sand (with rocks!) where his lawn cannot be further encroached! I am hoping he won't notice the line has moved a few times 
So planting Virginia rose in beds with other perennials is not a good idea, but in a new planting of a large area, you can interplant with self-seeding annuals, biennials or short-lived perennials to fill the bed for the first few years while the rose spreads....I initially planted the above bed with common sage, purple coneflower, cranesbill, foxglove, cosmos and cleome, and after 4 years, mostly only the foxglove remains in the area, probably because its seedlings are more shade-tolerant than the others. The others I have simply moved to other areas of the garden or given away to friends.
If you've grown roses before, you'll appreciate that Virginia's foliage is very resistant to most of the common diseases that disfigure roses. Like all roses (wild or cultivated), Japanese beetles love to eat its foliage, but if your plant is healthy and vigorous, it should shrug off any damage. These roses bloom in June in central Massachusetts, and Japanese beetles don't tend to arrive in large numbers in our area til early July, so by the time the beetles start chewing, you should have other beautiful blooming plants to distract you from a few holes in their leaves.
Virginia rose canes top out at about 4', so you should never need to prune them for height, especially because you'd be cutting off one of the plant's best features, its plump red hips that you barely notice until the first winter snows suddenly bring them to life:
The hips must be pretty sour to taste, because the birds don't seem to touch them at all during the winter. They disappear around the beginning of spring here, so winter's deep freezes must sweeten them up a bit, or else late winter birds are too hungry to be picky. I often see their thorny stems used as a temporary hideout by foraging winter birds, who get spooked by hungry hawks hovering around my bird gardens and feeders. The white background makes tiny birds much more visible to larger predators (my dogs will confirm this because they constantly mistake them for chipmunks!) but even a cat is unlike to risk those nasty thorns and go in after them...
If your garden conditions are boggy or wet, the best native roses for garden use are swamp rose (R. palustris) and New England rose (R. nitida), although these bloom a little later than the field roses in summer.
If you look, you may still find native roses growing wild in natural areas. More often than not, though, roses that you see in the wild are the invasive multiflora rose (R. multiflora), which is often assumed to be native but is an introduced rose from Asia that has been steadily overtaking old fields in New England for decades:
Although birds do eat their berries, multiflora rose has a highly negative impact on its surroundings, forming enormous thickets that crowd out the native plants that underpin balanced and healthy ecosystems. Chances are, if you see a large, fragrant sprawling wild rose with white flowers and arching stems, it's multiflora rose. Removing these from your property can be a great contribution to protecting local biodiversity...you can either replant with one of our native New England roses, or use the "wait, weed and watch" approach, which means simply rooting out any remaining multiflora canes that pop up over time, and allowing any native plants that are still hanging on to make a comeback.
If you try the wait, weed and watch approach, be prepared for a funny thing to happen. You'll begin to notice an increasing variety of birds, butterflies and other interesting wildlife that visit your naturalized area, many more so than your more cultivated garden areas, and eventually you will realize that your wildlife garden, with all the life it attracts, is your most beautiful and favorite garden of them all...
** BY THE WAY ** Apologies to my email blog subscribers who received a half-written article on Wednesday by email - I hit the "Publish" button instead of the "Save" button and the article went out as is {deep embarrassment}. The complete article is available here: Gimme Shelter...for the Birds
Posted by Ellen Sousa at 1/7/2011 11:24 AM 
Categories: New England invasive plants, native new england plants, New England gardening for birds, Beautiful gardens, Backyard habitats, New England native plant gardens, invasives, Bird plants, Winter bird gardens, Wildlife gardens
Tags: virginia rose carolina rose swamp rose rosa carolina rose palustris rosa nitida native New England roses multiflora rose Rosa multiflora invasive wild rose
Categories: New England invasive plants, native new england plants, New England gardening for birds, Beautiful gardens, Backyard habitats, New England native plant gardens, invasives, Bird plants, Winter bird gardens, Wildlife gardens
Tags: virginia rose carolina rose swamp rose rosa carolina rose palustris rosa nitida native New England roses multiflora rose Rosa multiflora invasive wild rose
Ellen, I was not familiar with Rosa virginiana and so found this post very enlightening. I wish I had an appropriate place to plant one.
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Jean - you can always try the Carolina rose if you want to try a variety that spreads much less quickly...
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Dear Ellen, Thank you for all the info on Virginia Rose . . . I added it last year in an area where other robust plants grow. Now I think I may get more plants to pul in areas where Bishops Weed is so pervasive. I might plant some along a bank too. I am sure the bees love the roses.
I may have two bushes ( I keep severely pruned) of the non native Multi flora. I did not plant them and do remove any I see in the fields and lower land. I wonder if I am still doing a disservice to natives by allowing these two to grow up close to the house . . . for the birds do love to eat the hips and I know that is how seeds are spread. Bluebirds especially love them. What to do? Should I cut them down . . . or could they be another type. Can you recommend a really good source for identifying the plant? Thanks so!
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Carol - they are tough to ID but the giveaway is the fringed petioles at the base of the leaf stem. Also, the canes tend to get quite tall and arching, and the thorns are usually curved. My guess is that unless you planted them yourself, they are multiflora. They are pretty much everywhere across the state. You could try IPANE for more ID tips. As you said, the birds do love them, which is how they have spread so far and wide. They were originally introduced as wildlife cover and windbreaks for farm fields.
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This was a great article on the pretty native roses. I am surrounded by multiflora and constantly pulling them out of the unmowed area and rooting tiny rose seedlings up from my gardens. The only roses I have planted are the knockout roses, since I didn't know mcuh & thought they were the only cultivated ones I could grow successfully. They're ok, but I'm not a fan. These natives are so much nicer!
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Laurrie, I'm not surprised to hear the multiflora is all over the edges of your subdivision....it typically invades those kinds of wild areas that are left on the edges of new housing. And then spread into your cultivated gardens by the birds who eat them. Happy to hear of your zero-tolerance policy....it's good to know that your little corner of CT is a tiny multiflora-free zone! Every bit helps
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Ellen,
Thank you for all of the information on Rosa virginiana. This is one I am looking forward to incorporating into my landscape. A gardening friend of mine loves it for the abundant hips, and winter interest.
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Liisa, I don't think you'll regret it. Those VA rose hips are big and edible (by both people and wildlife) and are very high in vitamin C!
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This is wonderful information about the Virginia rose. I plan to make a trip to Nasami farm this spring and buy one. I have a great spot for it. I also want to mention that those who want hardy, disease resistant roses should look for the EarthKind label. This is not a type of rose, but a designation given by the Texas A&M after testing roses for hardiness and ease of maintaining. Some Griffith Buck roses are EarthKind.
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Pat, always happy to give you an excuse to visit Nasami Farm, I love that place but I have a hard time there. I want everything!
Thanks for the tip on EarthKind roses. Sounds like a good program. Looks like they did initial testing only in TX but that more states (including ME) are joining as test locations. It's a total waste of time and money to buy and plant expensive roses in New England that are not proven hardy here..as many rose-loving broken hearts can attest!
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Thanks for this recommendation. I, too, am sick of black spot at the end of every rose season. I'll keep an eye out for this variety.
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Well, you talked me out of planting pachysandra under the Sargent crab in our sunken Garden, and made it certain that I will get the Virginia rose from Nasami in another week or two. The Rose Bank can take that kind of growth.
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