Multi-flora Rose - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14844766

Shortly before my time, someone gave my father a number of Multi-flora Rose seedlings. Apparently, at one time, either the University of Kentucky or some agency of the government recommended Multi-flora Rose as a living fence. One small problem with that - they don't seem to know to fill in the entire fence line. If a problem develops with the wire in the rose gaps, it's a torturous task to get through the roses and fix it. By the time I got big enough to help with things like fence repair, Pop cursed the day he planted those roses and expressed a wish that the guy who gave him the seedlings would be out wandering naked at night, and stumble into a rose tangle.

My own feelings towards Multi-flora Roses have always been more ambivalent. On the down side, they come up everywhere, not just in fence rows. When the canes grow long enough to droop to the ground, the ends of the canes take root, making an ever widening tangle. On the up side, few things make any better nesting habitat for a multitude of birds - Cardinals, Brown Thrashers, Mockingbirds, and anything else that will nest off the ground and below treetops. The roses in the accompanying photos provide the only cover by this pond. The cows would have either bitten off or trampled almost anything else that might have been planted here for cover. And the cover they provide is useful for more than just nesting. A couple of years ago, a family of Wood Ducks that began life in a box beside another pond, made the trek to this pond to take advantage of the cover provided by the tangle overhanging the water. Whenever I came by, they would simply swim out of sight beneath the roses.

This year, Japanese Beetles have attacked all the roses so heavily that they didn't even bloom. And these pond side roses, having caused the berms on which they sprouted to slump towards the pond, are also suffering from damp feet. I'm not too worried about them. According to the native plant purists, I'm "supposed" to be against them anyway and "should" be on a quest to eradicate them. I would not recommend planting them anywhere they haven't planted themselves. And I grub up many roses every year, but have no plans to grub them all. They're simply too useful.

הועלה ב-יולי 31, 2018 10:04 לפנה"צ על ידי frank-lyne frank-lyne

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frank-lyne

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יולי 27, 2018 07:16 לפנה"צ CDT

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Growing so close to pond that gravity is making them collapse the bit of pond bank where they first sprouted. They're gradually drowning.

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