Plant-A-Day 2020 (Day 172) Rose–Unknown Species

This rambler was started from a seed borrowed from the Arboretum about 15 or so years ago. It has turned into a maleficent marauder. It has good qualities, but I need to root it out now that I see what it can do. It has clean blue-green foliage, wicked thorns, and lovely, fragrant single light pink wild-rose flowers. Best of all (and worst of all) it sets myriad bright red oval hips that are extremely festive in the fall and winter. The hips are bursting with viable seeds and they have spread around my yard–several along the driveway bed and a large one at the corner of the orchard bed near the neighbor’s yard. That one is over ten feet tall and smothering other plants and blooming madly right now! So, it has to go soon.

Here are some photos of the plants, flowers and hips through the years.

My 2020 plans for this plant are to conquer it completely and replace it with native plants with less territorial ambition.