Sunday, July 18, 2010

Rude, Rustic Rose Relative .. Rubus r. 'Coronarius'


Rubus rosifolius 'Coronarious'
Plant lust can make a gardener quite mad. In the early days of Alice's Garden, I would read about an unusual specimen in a gardening magazine and simply have to have it. The photo - scanned from a slide - illustrates a particularly spiny... or let's just say a painfully bristly, barbed relative of the genus Rosa: A Rubus species grown for its fluffy white multi-petaled blooms.

As mentioned, the beauty of Rubus rosifolius 'Coronarious' had been highly touted in-print by a beloved and renowned writer/plantsman. And I did swoon when the glowing flowers of this humble yet elegant long-blooming bramble appeared along the back fence in my secret garden.

Yet after a time I decided to remove it.
Plants come and plants go in the life of any garden, and certainly in the small space I cultivate in Northern California. I often look fondly upon this beauty when perusing my collection of 35 mm garden slides, recalling my tussles with its canes, as well as the excitement of observing the way the flowers would light up an out-of-the-way spot in the garden, alongside a narrow pathway.

Do you grow R. r. 'Coronarious' ... or another ornamental bramble?

6 comments:

  1. Yes, I feel the same way! My garden will never be "done," just a continuous rotation of flowers dancing in and about. It's too tempting to take one home to see if they're as pretty as the photo and/or description says it is!

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  2. Oh a garden should always evolving I think, keeps things exciting.
    The only bramble we grow is 'the' bramble ie. the blackberry - just waiting for all those lovely fruits to colour up now, yummy

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  3. Never heard of an ornamental bramble before! Seems like it served you well and then it was time to go. I see why you fell for it! But also maybe why you decided to nix it eventually. Hope you are well, sorry to be away so long!

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  4. What a beautiful flower! I was just deadheading this morning and making plans to move or remove this one or that one. I think of those moments as aha! moments.

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  5. Alice, long ago I grew Rubus 'Benenden,' and I thought nothing could look as fresh as this bramble in bloom. But it barely tolerated zone 10, finally disappearing altogether. They do come and go, don't they?

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  6. Hello my friends!

    A belated reply to all...

    We seem to share an understanding of the ever-changing nature of our gardenscapes. And the difficulty picking and choosing which beauties will come and which will be pulled out;-)

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