A Rose a Day No. 27

This is photo take yesterday by Eungbok, my partner, of me and the most common species rose in these parts, Rosa multiflora. It was taken while on a walk on an oak covered hillside near where we live. An important species rose in China, Korea, and Japan, it is similar to the Dog Rose, but with white five petalled flowers rather than pink, and large yellow stamens. The petals are serrated and often heart shaped, and the fragrance very delicate, and when the plant is mature, they  come in very profuse clusters or panicles on long, arching canes.  

This is the specimen in our garden:

Sometimes, as the petals age, they are tinged with pale pink:

As you can see from the photo of me and Multiflora, it bears a lot or round red hips  - the fruit of the rose – in autumn.

A few years ago, I uprooted a specimen of Rosa multiflora from nearby, where it was growing bordering a road, and planted it in our garden.   In Korea this rose is commonly called ‘Jjillekkot’ – ‘Mountain Rose’. There is a popular song by Jang Sa-Ik about it. Here is a translation of the first verse:

White flower, Mountain Rose,

Simple flower, Mountain Rose.

Sad like a star, Mountain Rose,

Doleful like the moon, Mountain Rose.

Since hearing this song, I can but see the Multiflora in our garden as sad, an impression that the sparseness, thinness, and the arching trajectory of the canes tends to encourage. We made the mistake of pruning it back a couple of years ago, and it protested by barely blossoming last year. This year, however, it put on a very multifloriferous show. It has also multiplied, and there are now five more Rosa multiflora plants growing in our garden!

Rosa Multiflora is also popular rootstock, especially in colder climates. Early on in my life as a rose gardener I was surprised to find in my garden in France buds growing on some cane whose wood and leaves looked different, and whose blossoms then turned out to be quite different from the rest of the rose. I learned that this was the suckers of the rootstock sprouting from below a portion of the stem and root system onto which a bud eye had been grafted. If you don’t cut these back, they may very well take over, reverting the rose to the rootstock, such as Rosa laxa, ‘Dr. Huey’, or Rosa multiflora. Furthermore, one can uproot a rose and replant it, and then find its rose’s rootstock suckers pushing their way through where the now re-relocated rose once grew. As a result, I have a vigorous Rosa multiflora growing in my French garden, just like the one I transplanted from the nearby hillside in South Korea.