![\"Rugosa-1\"](\"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Rugosa-1.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 My dead zone was in the little garden bed that I planted at our Central New York summer cottage.\u00a0 I tried native plants, as well as species that I knew worked in a variety of challenging conditions.\u00a0 Though I am not a great lover of ornamental grasses, I even thought of putting in a nice clump of the indestructible Chinese silver grass or Miscanthus sinensis.\u00a0 Most of all, I despaired of ever finding a plant strong enough to resist very cold winters, clay soil and an abundance of neglect.<\/p>\nJust as I was about to pick up a one-gallon pot of miscanthus, I spotted a lonely rugosa rose at the back of a local nursery.\u00a0 It had no tag, but was easy to recognize by its wrinkled, dark green leaves and abundant prickles.\u00a0 It was not blooming, but the remnants of a recently departed blossom suggested that the rose was dark pink.\u00a0 It was also on sale for a ridiculously low price.\u00a0 Rugosas are hardy enough to survive on windswept New England beaches, so I thought it was worth a try in my dead zone.<\/p>\n
I took it back to the cottage, hacked a large hole in the clay soil, amended the soil from the hole with an equal amount of compost and planted the rose.\u00a0 I tended it faithfully for the final five days of my vacation and then left it for ten months.<\/p>\n
When Memorial Day Weekend rolled around the last spring, I was shocked to see that my rugosa rose was putting out new growth.\u00a0 By Labor Day it boasted even more new growth and was blooming, with a cluster of semi-double flowers in a lovely shade of dark, purplish-pink.\u00a0 Best of all, those blooms were as fragrant as any rose I have ever encountered.\u00a0 Most rugosa hybrids have a strong, spicy scent, with clove as the predominant note.\u00a0 My anonymous rugosa had a ravishing old rose scent.\u00a0 Only the prickles deterred me from cutting the entire cluster and bringing it into the cottage.<\/p>\n
My rugosa not only survived but thrived for a year in the dead zone.\u00a0 That in itself is cause for a garden party.\u00a0 The stunning, fragrant blooms called for fireworks.<\/p>\n
Rugosas are native to Eastern Asia and Japan, and, according to English garden designer and writer Dan Pearson, the toughness comes from the fact that the rose\u2019s \u201cnatural domain is the salt-blasted sand dunes of Russia and Japan.\u201d\u00a0 The plants were introduced into Europe in the 1830\u2019s, charming Europeans in search of sturdy, fragrant roses.\u00a0 Eventually they made their way to the New World.\u00a0 The plants succeeded so well in New England and northern Ontario that they escaped from gardens and naturalized readily.\u00a0 The dune roses that you see on New England beaches, with hips as big as cherry tomatoes, are escaped rugosas.<\/p>\n
Breeders could not resist the rugosas, and have produced many hybrids over the last century and a half.\u00a0 Most of them have the characteristic spicy fragrance, prickly stems, large hips, and bloom in shades ranging from white through dark red.\u00a0 I suspect that mine might be \u2018Hansa\u2019, a red variety introduced in the Netherlands in 1905.\u00a0 It resembles the blooms on my rose and is noted for strong fragrance. Rugosas are great specimen plants, but also work well for privacy hedges.\u00a0 Though they are not fussy about soil and shrug off climatic extremes, they do require full sunlight.\u00a0 Some varieties will also do reasonably well in very light shade.<\/p>\n I am very fond of \u2018Blanc Double de Coubert\u2019, a hybrid rugosa with double white flowers, introduced in 1893 by a French breeder with a wonderful name–Charles Pierre Marie Cochet-C<\/a>ochet.\u00a0 The spicy fragrance is very pronounced and the blossoms shine.\u00a0 Another popular rugosa is \u2018Frau Dagmar Hastrup\u2019, a light pink, single-flowered variety.\u00a0 If I can find the room in my home garden I will also try \u2018Agnes\u2019, a yellow Canadian rose, introduced in 1922.\u00a0 I love yellow roses and would have even more of them if they weren\u2019t so susceptible to black spot.\u00a0 \u2018Agnes\u2019 might just fill that bill and add fragrance to the mix.<\/p>\n Good nurseries and garden centers often carry rugosa hybrids, though they are not always named varieties and are sometimes positioned behind or off to one side of the flashier roses.\u00a0 Look for the wrinkled leaves and prickles, which will be evident on even a non-blooming plant.\u00a0 If you opt for mail order, you can try Heirloom Roses, 24062 NE Riverside Dr., St. Paul, Oregon 97137; (800) 80-0465; www.heirloomroses.com. Everyone has a garden dead zone.\u00a0 It can be a small area or a larger one where nothing seems to last very long.\u00a0 You buy plants over and over again that are labeled as \u201chardy\u201d or \u201ctough\u201d, and install them with high hopes, only to watch helplessly as they struggle and die.\u00a0 Containers might work … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[2170,2168,2169,198,1243,2171,731,1493,192,973,2167],"class_list":["post-2845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-agnes","tag-frau-dagmar-hartopp","tag-hansa","tag-beach-roses","tag-blanc-double-de-coubert","tag-dune-roses-scented-roses","tag-fragrant-roses","tag-old-roses","tag-rosa-rugosa","tag-rose-hips","tag-rugosa-rose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2849,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2845\/revisions\/2849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"