GOERT: Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team

Spindly shrub to 1.5 m tall with slender stems, usually with numerous soft straight (not curved) prickles that are sometimes unarmed (especially on younger stems). This rose has deciduous leaves and small pale-pink to rose-coloured fragrant flowers. Fruits are orange to scarlet pear-shaped ‘hips.’ This is a delicate specimen if grouped, but somewhat scraggly as single plants. Use as a hedge or in a shrub border. Photo by Dave Polster. Click here for propagation information.

Medium to tall shrub 0.5-3 m tall, spreading by rhizomes and often thicket-forming; stems stout to spindly, erect to arching, with a pair of large prickles (thorns) at each node, usually lacking internodal prickles; mature stems blackish. Photo by Dave Polster. Click here for propagation information.

Spindly shrub to 3 m tall, with a pair of large prickles at the base of the each leaf, other prickles are usually absent except on some new growth. It has compound deciduous leaves and five-petalled pink flowers with numerous stamens borne in clusters at the branch tips. The showy red hips persist well into winter. This rose can be trained as a climber to about 3 m in height and works well as a hedge or a shrub border. Click here for propagation information.

Unarmed, spreading 1-2 m tall shrub. The branches are grey-brown and deciduous leaves are dark green on upper surface and have whitish/silvery felt of hairs and rusty brown scales on underside. The flowers are an inconspicuous yellow-brown in colour, but the fruits are bright red, translucent, juicy oval berries. These berries are extremely bitter to the taste and soapy to the touch. This shrub makes a tough hedge once established in full sun to light shade with moist to dry soils. Photo by Dave Polster. Click here for propagation information.

Shrub 0.5–2 m tall. Butterflies are attracted by the paired tiny pink-white flowers in June and white berries in winter provide food for birds. Dry to moist well-drained soil. Excellent soil binder, good for rehabilitating riparian areas and mine spoils. Butterflies are attracted by this shrub’s flowers and it is also an important food for pheasant, grouse and quail. Good back-of-border shrub for the home garden. Photo by Moralea Milne. Click here for propagation information.