Multiflora rose a garden nuisance

Dear Diana, I have never endorsed wanton destruction of life. I have no quarrel with anyone who eats what they hunt and makes what use they can of the rest. But killing for sport just isn’t right.

Unless the critter is a Japanese or multiflora rose, Rosa mulitflora.

My riding mower tangled with one too many of these beasts the other day, leaving a considerable portion of me torn and bleeding, jags of thorns jutting out of various inaccessible places. In a fit, I grabbed the wheelbarrow and a pair of brush clippers and set out to rectify the world. But like creatures from a Spielberg film, the roses came to life before my very eyes. As I got down on my knees to cut one bush at the base, another unrelated plant leaned over and grabbed my by the hair. The first plant, in the throes of agony, joined in, entangling several branches in my loose hair as well.

I cannot print the conversation I had with these misbegotten plants. Suffice it to say that strong, highly unprintable language was used.

Now, you know the unruliness of my long, curly hair and can imagine the resulting enormity of the situation. And the gravity. And – at least to the two people who chose that particular moment to come tooling along on an ATV – the hilarity of it. Good thing no one within grabbing distance laughed. It quickly escalated from an act of horticultural genocide to a real life-and-death struggle for my person. I had to make the gut-wrenching decision: Do I cut the branches or my hair? By sheer dint of will, I tore free of the branches, leaving plenty of material for later-nesting birds as evidence of my brush with near-baldness.

Short of a bulldozer or nuclear bomb, is there any way to get rid of these nasty creatures? I prefer not to use herbicide – it being too quick and painless a death for these dreadful plants.

My best, Elizabeth

When my sister e-mailed this amusing message this week, I knew exactly what sort of difficulty she had endured. An enormous mulitflora specimen lives at the corner of my yard and launches an attack every time I walk past. Others of its kin are growing here and there throughout the property and pastures. I swear they duck and lie low when the bush-hog mower comes through on its biennial passes. They escape control with amazing skill.

Also known as the Japanese rose, this species is one of many introduced into the American landscape during the Victorian era and which escaped from cultivation into the wild shortly thereafter. Undoubtedly, birds have aided in the expansion of the species’ range. They ingest the colorful fruits – or hips – of the shrub, which are long-lasting from late summer well into autumn and the early winter months and which provide nutritious fodder.

Michael Dirr, an authority on woody plant material, writes that the multiflora rose has no real landscape benefit, but has received “a lot of attention for conservation purposes. [It] makes a good place for all the ‘critters’ to hide, yet can be a real nuisance, for the birds deposit seeds in the fencerows and open areas, and soon one has a jungle. Use this species with the knowledge that none of your gardening friends in the immediate vicinity will ever speak to you again.”

The shrub may reach 10 feet in height and may spread to 15 feet. The branches drape from the plant’s center, creating a fountain of long, slender branches that recurve back toward the base of the shrub, creating a rather impenetrable mass of thorny stems.

The flowers of the multiflora rose are small and creamy white. Borne in many-flowered corymbs, or upright clusters, they turn to oblong red hips that can be used for decorative purposes if one is willing to battle thorns to harvest them.

Speaking of getting near the shrub, I must respond to that question in the curious e-mail. My sister will need to know that Dirr recommends burning, not pruning the shrub. This is an odd recommendation, one that is indicative of the plant’s exceptionally unruly nature. Few plants listed in his comprehensive reference book have earned this analysis.

The multiflora rose is just one of a group of invasive plants that warrant widespread control.

Keep a look out!

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, 512 North Ridge Road, Montville 04941, or e-mail dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.