Wild roses

The freshest, purest roses you can grow are those which are closest to nature. Their delicate, natural flowers disguise a tough constitution: they grow almost anywhere and shrug off pests and diseases. And it doesn't stop there: spectacularly beautiful brilliant red hips carry on the display well into autumn and winter.

Here are some of our favourite wild roses from the range in our garden centre:

Winged thorn rose (Rosa pteracantha): famous for its blood-red sharks' fin thorns glowing like stained glass in sunshine. The flowers are delicate white, appearing in late spring.

Sweetbriar (Rosa eglanteria): possibly the most romantic name in the rose world, sweetbriar is an English native hedgerow rose with cheery pale-pink flowers followed by orange hips.

Rosa moschata: very late to flower, beginning its display of simple white flowers in September and at its best in mid-October when most other plants are going to sleep.

Geraniuim rose (Rosa moyesii): brilliant scarlet single flowers followed by extraordinary hips like elongated goblets in sealing wax red

Burnet rose (Rosa spinosissima): a low-growing rose smothered in simple white flowers all summer, followed by marble-sized gleaming round near-black hips through autumn.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in Henley on Thames for more information and advice about growing wild 'species' roses.