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Rosa rugosa

Mary370Mary370 Posts: 2,003
I am considering getting rosa rugosa to grow as a hedge.  Has anyone grown it as a hedge?  Any/all opinions welcome...........

Posts

  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    Yes.
    Up sides - Tough as old boots, amazing fragrance, gorgeous big rosehips.
    Down sides - can be thuggish (it suckers), little tiny thorns that are awful to get out of your thumb.

    If you have plenty of room and a windy site, it's ideal. In a small garden, I think it might be quite hard to keep confined enough to not become a nuisance
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    Don't. It's a horrific spreading nightmare. unless you have grass that you mow on both sides of the hedge don't go there.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    Not good for me either.  I sneaked a few hips from some plants ina car park in Wavre and sowed them.  By spring I had a healthy crop of babies to grow on and ended up with a 20 metre hedge of it along our northwest boundary.   All was well for a couple of years but the a couple of harsh, windy winters blasted it to pieces so the tops were ugly and needed heavy pruning but the roots had suckered and it started spreading everywhere.   

    I wanted it as a windbreak and wildlife feature.  It failed on both counts.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • Loraine3Loraine3 Posts: 579
    Never had any problems with it; used it alongside a farm drive to cover a rusty fence!
  • a1154a1154 Posts: 1,108
    I like it, very pretty, lovely fragrance. Agree it does sucker and the thorns are mean. One problem I have with it is bits flopping forward onto the ground. I guess you are supposed to cut any floppy bits off, but it’s something I’d have to regularly, and I’m lazy so they tend to get left. 
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    It really is a thug, I’ve got it everywhere here, never planted any of it , it just came. 
    After the hips have died down a bit, and I’ve actually never seen it being eaten by  birds,  I cut the whole lot right down to the ground, next year it’s up again, double the size.

    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • PurplerainPurplerain Posts: 1,053
    Please don't. My neighbour planted it as a hedge and it came into my front garden uninvited. It is a thug and as difficult to get rid of as bamboo.
    SW Scotland
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    edited August 2018
    Should also have said - it doesn't really make a tidy hedge. It's a sprawler. Along a farm drive sounds perfect for it. I have it behind where our cars are parked, at the top of the drive, so the fact that the birds don't seem to eat the hips (although the bees do love the flowers) is a Good Thing for me or the cars would be permanently covered in pre-digested rosehip. 
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
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