Like all good classical gardens, Hatfield House in Hertfordshire has a loose bit in the far corner. After all the clipped hedges and framed vistas, there’s a lake with a pleasure-garden-cum-arboretum that unfolds gracefully. As Edith Wharton said, “Each step away from architecture was a nearer approach to nature” – that is to say, as it became a little wilder, so the things growing there became wilder too.
There was a path lined with the burnet rose, Rosa spinosissima (or perhaps a cultivar – it’s hard to tell from the hips). This is a native rose, particularly associated with Scotland and mostly found on the coast among sand dunes or, if inland, on limestone pavements. It is a low-growing bush with many stiff red prickles up the stems, delightful small grey leaves and single white flowers. It is a lovely thing to come across in the wild and just as lovely in a garden, but its best feature is neither its stems nor its pretty flowers, but its dark purple, squat hips in autumn. In the cultivar ‘Grandiflora’, a double-flowered version, the hips are almost jet-black. Against the grey foliage and red stems, they shine like jewels.
In a more formal garden with yew hedges for a backdrop, there were large R. glauca underplanted with the romantic froth of perennials. Here, their large hips and fountain of foliage sang against the dark green. Another similar one, though perhaps not quite so widely planted, is R. villosa, the apple rose. It too has grey foliage on arching stems but is crowned in autumn with bright red apple-shaped hips that are often devoured by the birds, who seed it around. The variety ‘Duplex’ has semi-double pink flowers that are slightly larger than the species and produce somewhat fewer hips. Both grow to around 1.8m.
The best for eating remains R. rugosa and the refined cultivar ‘Alba’, the tomato rose. It’s the one widely used in public spaces, with fat, tomato-shaped hips. There’s plenty of flesh to nibble into and it tastes sweet and tangy, a lovely hit of vitamin C. But it’s a big rose for a small space, perhaps best for parks.
R. sinowilsonii is a species rose for a more sheltered spot: it won’t tolerate cold, but it will take some shade. After the clusters of creamy white flowers come the lovely orange hips. It is a very disease-resistant rambler – in the right place, a good one for covering up something unsightly.
R. ‘Madame Grégoire Staechelin’ is a climbing hybrid tea, so it has that classic rose thing going on in all its fully double, clear pink ruffled petals, which have a deep, heady scent. And then, my favourite bit, big red hips. It’s ideal for covering a sunny fence or wall as it’s fast-growing.
If you like strange, then the shrub rose R. roxburghii has a very simple pink flower with a mass of golden stamens followed by large spiny green yellow hips that give rise to its common name, the chestnut rose. It’s a wonderful one for a wildlife garden because the pollinators love it and it doesn’t mind shadier conditions in poorer soil.
