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There are a couple of wild dog roses in the hedges around the garden, and I tend to overlook them,
but suddenly in summer they are outstanding.
I don't get much in the way of autumn colour here, and the usual red berries get devoured
by flocks of migratory thrushes that spend the winter in Cornwall, so I cherish
the splash of red from these rosehips which are too large and too firmly connected to the plant for the thrushes to get. John Gerard wrote in his Herbal (1597): "The Brier Bush or Hip tree is also called Rosa canina, which is a plant so common and well known, that it were to small purpose to use many words in the description thereof: for even children with great delight eat the berries thereof when they be ripe, make chains and other pretty gewgaws of the fruit: cooks and gentlewomen make tarts and such like dishes for pleasure thereof, and therefore this shall suffice for the description." |
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| 5th December 2010 | ||
