"I have two groups of five bushes of the plain species Rosa moyesii and a solitary R moyesii 'Geranium'.
Both have wonderful single crimson flowers that speckle large upright bushes in a curiously scattered but deeply satisfying distribution. (One of my annual treats is to crawl behind one of the large clumps of the moyesii when in full flower and peer back at the garden through the veil of delicate leaves and blood-red flowers, seeing the world for a moment through that particular mirror.)
I grow them for the flowers alone, but the rose man I respect more than any other, Peter Beales, says, in his book Classic Roses (£40, Harvill), that,
'It is undoubtedly the fruit that makes this rose and its hybrids so popular.'
Last year it fell short on flowers - so, of course, no hips.
But this year it flowered beautifully, so I waited for the fruits with baited breath.
Two. Just two hips are there, and two are not enough to make 'this rose and its hybrids so popular'.
Beales goes on to write, 'The plant can usually be relied upon to yield a large crop each year' and, having rubbed that salt into my wounds, he warns, 'Beware of growing this rose from seed or purchasing plants grown by this means, as many are sterile and never produce hips'. Fair enough, but I got my roses from the estimable Lindsay Bousfield at Acton Beauchamp Roses and I know all her roses are budded.
Elsewhere around the garden the rosehips are in full display, festooned from the branches like grapes, great tomato jobs on the rugosas, gobstoppers on 'Scharlachglut', oval aniseed balls on the dog roses, black ones on the pimpinellifolia and small dangles of orange on cantabridgiensis and willmottiae. You can see from this that the species roses, which are so lovely in so many ways, tend to produce the best hips.
The Rosaceae family across the board produces my favourite berries at this time of year (or fails to). The hawthorn, crataegus monogyna, is smothered in haws at the moment, each containing one stone, as opposed to the Midland hawthorn, crataegus laevigata, which will have two or sometimes three stones. This is mainly a rural thing, not least because 'Paul's Scarlet', the most commonly grown garden hybrid of C laevigata, hardly ever makes fruits. The birds love the haws and once we get the first batch of really chilly weather the trees will be stripped in a matter of days. Good reason, I guess, for growing the common type in your garden as a source of winter food for songbirds. C atrocarpa has black berries and C crus-galli, a more common garden type, has fewer but larger fruit.
Pyracantha is closely related to the hawthorns and no member of the rose family makes more berries than the firethorn. This year is the best I have ever known. As I drive around the country, houses are practically keeling over under the weight of flame-coloured berries off the wall-trained pyracantha. The more heat and sun the plant gets the better the berries will be - which is why those trained against a brick wall usually display better. The birds will eat them, but not until they have stripped the hawthorns and other, softer fruits, and if it is a mild winter they might be left completely alone. One should be as brash as possible with pyracantha, and 'Orange Glow' is as brash as they come, although 'Navaho' and 'Golden Charmer' push it hard. P rogersiana 'Flava' has yellow berries, if pyracantha and yellow is what you are after.
Photinia is also closely related in this rose-family nexus, with hawthorn-like berries and pyracantha-ish leaves. Everyone grows photinia 'Robusta' for its red new foliage, and that has been the part of the plant that has bothered me - it is a dirty-brown red to my eyes - but the combination of the mature green leaves and red fruit is pleasantly holly-like.
Another rosy cousin is cotoneaster. It comes in many forms, from the tiny-leafed C microphyllus to the more generous foliage of C salicifolius or C serotinus. All will grow anywhere that the drainage is good, including dry shade, which is why it is so often a component of new-house planting. Bung a cotoneaster in against a shady wall and you won't go far wrong. C horizontalis is prostrate and is one of the kneejerk plants used to cover a bank or septic tank, but it is not a bad plant, for all it ubiquitousness.
There are lots of wonderful berries at this time of year, and outside my window, as I write, is the Portuguese laurel, Prunus lusitanicus. I grow my laurels as topiary, intending them to become umbrellas or lollipops (I haven't decided which yet, and they are growing rather slowly, so there is time enough before I have to make the final cut). As topiary, their vigorous white racemes of flower are unnecessary and even embarrassing, rather like a palace guardsman breaking into dance.
If I pruned in early spring I would cut the flower buds off and not have to cope with the floral indecorum, but the resulting small black berries are suitably sober. And despite being dark, and therefore less obviously palatable, it is more food for the birds in winter. Unlike the missing moyesii rose hips.
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