Shining Rose

rosier brillant
Shining (or maritime) Rose blooming in the hoop house at Beaux Arbres.

Another wild rose we are propagating at Beaux Arbres is Shining Rose (Rosa nitida), also known as Maritime Rose. I collected the seed for this species in Nova Scotia. I understand it occurs in Quebec along the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore but it does not occur naturally in the Ottawa valley.

I particularly like this rose for gardens because of its relatively low stature and its fine foliage texture. Its leaflets are smaller and shinier than those of other North American wild rose species, Shining Rose has fabulous fall foliage colour — flaming reds and oranges — and small red hips. Its suckers in loose sandy soil, as do most wild roses, but it is constrained by tighter clayey soils. Topping out at three feet or less, Shining Rose is the ideal wild rose for smaller gardens.

By Trish Murphy

Artist: botanical, still life, and natural history illustration. Garden designer: native plants and naturalistic gardens

Leave a comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: