Rosa Rugosa Alba

White Rugosa roses flower primarily in spring, but also have sporadic flowers until autumn. The flowers have a lovely fragrance. It is extremely cold-hardy & very sun-hardy. Its ideal is temperate coastal maritime conditions, thus it thrives in my garden. The shrub reflowers over a long period, the hips are ripening serially early summer until mid-autumn. I usually leave the hips on the shrub as they are very decorative, but ripe they can be harvested for jellies or other uses.

As with a regular pink rugosa, white rugosa roses sucker & spread into thick six-foot-tall & wide ground cover. They can be restrained with regular removal of suckers, but left to their own devices can sometimes spread quite rapidly, forming impenetrable walls of stickery canes.

I usually get rid of the suckers with the help of my mower, but last summer I dug up one and transplanted it into a new small border. My plan is to create a border with just white flowers. Hopefully the new plant will survive the winter. I am most eager to see the result, and will post a picture when spring has arrived.

The shrub needs to be pruned once a year to keep the shrub in shape. This should preferable be just before spring.