Small-flowered sweet-briar

How to recognise it

Growth habit

Loose shrub of 1.5–3 m with long, arching branches.

Leaf

Pinnate with 5–7 oval leaflets of 1.5–3 cm, double-toothed with tiny glands on the teeth; the underside bears many sticky glands that smell of apple when rubbed.

Flower

Single, 2–3 cm across, pale pink to pinkish white, with five petals; the flower stalks carry glandular hairs. Flowers in June–July.

Fruit

Egg-shaped to round, red hip of 1–1.5 cm. The sepals bend back after flowering and drop before the hip ripens in September–October.

Stem

Green to reddish, with hooked prickles of roughly equal size, but without the fine glandular bristles of sweet-briar.

Confusion with

Sweet-briar (Rosa rubiginosa) has larger, deeper pink flowers, a woolly little knob of styles in the centre of the flower, fine glandular bristles besides the large prickles, and sepals that stay on the hip for a long time. Dog rose (Rosa canina) has leaves without glands and without the apple scent.

Flowering: June–July · Pruning: February–March

Why grow it?

• A native wild rose that is rare here: by planting it, you help a little-known species of our hedgerows.
• The pale pink flowers in June–July are full of pollen for bees, bumblebees, hoverflies and beetles.
• The red hips stay on into winter and feed thrushes, blackbirds, fieldfares and mice.
• The leaves smell softly of apples, especially after a shower.
• The dense, prickly shrub is a safe nesting place for birds such as the whitethroat.
• Wild roses are food plants for many insects, including the rose gall wasp, which makes the hairy ‘robin’s pincushion’ galls.

Small-flowered sweet-briar: where does it grow best?

• In the wild: sunny hedges, scrub, woodland edges and the margins of chalk grassland, mainly on chalky or loamy soil.
• In the garden: sun to light shade; in shade it hardly flowers.
• Dry to moderately moist, free-draining soil, preferably chalky; poor soil is fine.
• Ideal in a mixed, freely growing hedge, a field hedge or at the edge of a wildflower meadow.

Goes well with

• Blackthorn: White flowers in early spring; together they make a prickly hedge for birds.
• Hawthorn: A classic native hedging shrub with white flowers in May and red berries.
• Wild privet: White, fragrant flowers in July and black berries; it also likes chalk.
• Wild marjoram: At the sunny foot of the hedge, full of butterflies in summer.

Small-flowered sweet-briar: when and how to plant it?

1. Buy it from a native plant nursery, preferably of local origin. Never dig up wild roses: this species is rare here.
2. Plant from November to March, when the soil is not frozen; bare-root plants are cheap and establish well.
3. Trim damaged roots and set the plant in a generous hole, at the same depth as it stood in the nursery.
4. Allow 1.5–2 m of space; in a mixed hedge, plant it 60–80 cm apart among other native shrubs.
5. Firm the soil well and water thoroughly, even if it is raining.
6. In the first year, water only during long dry spells; after that it looks after itself.

Care

Water

Only in the first year during drought; after that it is not needed.

Feeding

Not needed: on poor soil it stays healthy and flowers freely.

Space

Let it grow freely with arching branches: that is its finest shape and the best nesting site.

Hips

Leave them for the birds; pick only a few for seed.

Soil

Leave fallen leaves under the shrub: good for the soil and a hiding place for hedgehogs and insects.

Tip: After a shower, rub a leaf between your fingers: the soft apple scent tells you at once that you are looking at a rose of the sweet-briar group.

Pruning and mowing

Pruning months: February–March.

When: Little needed. Thin out in February–March, once the birds have eaten most of the hips.

How:

• Every three to four years, remove a few of the oldest, greyish branches at the base.
• Cut out dead and broken branches.
• Shorten over-long branches to just above a bud, but do not shear the shrub.
• Wear sturdy gloves and long sleeves: the hooked prickles are vicious.

Caution: If you cut everything back hard every year, you will get no flowers and no hips: wild roses flower on last year’s and older wood.

Pruning: when and how · Pruning calendar and basic rules

Propagation

Seed

In October, take the seeds out of ripe hips, rinse them and sow them straight away outdoors in a pot or seedbed. They only germinate after a cold winter, often only after two winters.

Hardwood cuttings

Cuttings of 20–25 cm in November, with the lower half in the ground in a sheltered spot. After a year, some of them will have roots.

Suckers

In autumn, cut a sucker with roots away from the parent plant and replant it elsewhere.

Small-flowered sweet-briar: how does it get through the winter?

Hardy to −25 °C.

• Drops its leaves in autumn; the red hips stay on the bare branches for a long time.
• Fully hardy, down to about −25 °C.
• Hips that remain on the shrub feed thrushes, fieldfares and redwings in harsh winters.
• Leave dead twigs and fallen leaves in and under the shrub: insects overwinter in them.

Diseases and pests

• Rose rust: Orange spore pustules on the underside of the leaves in summer. Usually harmless on wild roses; rake up badly affected leaves in autumn.
• Aphids: On young shoots in May. Tits, ladybirds and hoverfly larvae clear them up.
• Robin’s pincushion: A hairy, reddish ball on a twig: a gall made by the rose gall wasp. Harmless to the shrub and fascinating to look at: leave it.
• Being overgrown: In a hedge, stronger shrubs such as hawthorn and bramble can smother it. Keep it on the sunny side and cut back its neighbours.

Through the year

• January: Birds eat the last hips.
• February: Thin out: remove old and dead branches.
• March: Last pruning and planting.
• May: The young leaves smell of apple after a shower. Watch for aphids.
• June: In flower: bees and hoverflies on the pale pink blossoms.
• July: Last flowers; the young hips swell.
• September: The hips turn red.
• October: Ripe hips: collect seed and sow it outdoors straight away.
• November: Plant bare-root shrubs. Take hardwood cuttings.
• December: Leave the hips for the birds.

Did you know?

• Micrantha means ‘small-flowered’: its flowers are smaller than those of its close relative, sweet-briar.
• The hairy balls on wild roses, known as robin’s pincushions, are galls of the rose gall wasp. People once put them under their pillow in the hope of sleeping better.
• In roses of the dog rose group, to which this species belongs, seedlings get most of their genetic material from the mother plant: the pollen passes on only a small part.