Bog Myrtle & Peat

When I came to plant new hedges in 2010, I was hungry and impatient for progress. I wanted everything to happen all at once, so I made a virtue of celerity and favoured the fastest-growing species. I was willing to try anything back then, and I was even prepared to bend my rules on native species. So in a hundred-yard stretch of hedge on the hill, I buried three pieces of root from the Chinese plant rosa rugosa; a bright and everyday rose. I knew it was a versatile plant, and I also had some sense that it could be considered invasive in certain circumstances. Given that nothing was growing on the hill beyond rushes and sour grass at the time, it was hard to imagine a situation where “too much” of something new could ever be a problem.

Suckers emerged in the first year, and I watched it grow alongside a wealth of blackthorn, hawthorn, hazel and elder. It’s a perfectly good plant to have in a hedgerow, and an extraordinary profusion of flowers provide a wealth of nectar for bees and pollinators throughout the season. When the flowers died back, dense clusters of hips hung like glossy fruit on the stem-heads. These looked great, but I never actually saw anything eating them – but I must concede they were always gone when the new year began, so I reasoned that something must have had them. 

The problems came when I began to cut the hedge as part of a rotation. I like the idea of cropping hedges, not only for firewood but also for a wealth of workaday pegs, sticks and handles. It’s a beautifully self-sustaining source of raw materials, and after three productive “takes”, I’m really gratified by what a healthy hedgerow has to offer. But each time I’ve cut the hedge, I’ve also cut the rosa rugosa. I’ve had to, largely because it’s been in the way. Each time I’ve cut it back, the effect has been to pour petrol on the flames. Now I’m confronted with a raging beast which has begun to dominate across significant lengths of the hedge, smothering anything in its path. Rugosa starts to show its leaves very early in the year, and only blackthorn is fast enough to keep its head above water by rising alongside the new rose shoots. Hawthorn is under real threat, not because it doesn’t grow quickly but rather because it starts too late.

After ten years, this particular hedge is well established and looking good. But that has not led to any sense of stability in the power dynamics between multiple competing species. If I allow the hawthorn to get above the rugosa and form a tree, it will shade it out – but if the hawthorn is allowed to grow tall, it won’t be a hedge anymore. There’s always some degree of tension between plants which are deliberately being artificially maintained at a certain stage of growth or development, but the rugosa is a specifically aggressive accelerant which requires extra care. I don’t regret introducing this species to the hill, but I might yet.

Photo: Rosa Rugosa flowers yesterday (17/8/22) – interestingly, some are pink and others are white, with no obvious explanation.