Virginia Rose

Rosa virginiana

Virginia rose is the native rose built for wild edges and coastal slopes. not the curated garden, but the real landscape where wind comes off the water and the soil is sandy and thin. It's covered in single pink five-petaled flowers through June that smell like what a rose is supposed to smell like, not the cloyingly engineered fragrance of modern hybrids. Native bees love single roses; the open flowers give them full access to pollen that doubled hybridized varieties deny them. The fall color is one of the best of any native rose. glossy foliage turning deep orange-red to burgundy. Bright red-orange hips persist through winter and are taken by birds when little else is available. It spreads by suckers to form dense colonies that stabilize slopes and provide nesting cover for birds. Not a plant for a small manicured border, but perfect for a naturalized edge.