Rosa

How to generalize about a rose, when there are so many forms (species and especially cultivars), each with distinctive growth habits? Those that scramble and climb provide safe breeding sites for robins, away from the clutches of cats and sparrowhawks; the fertile forms produce berries (hips) that are eaten by small mammals such as voles and birds; all have leaves that are the food of larval lepidoptera and provide nest-rolls for leaf-cutter bees (learn to love the Modern Art!). And then the flowers: as always the wildlife rule is that wild-type five-petalled flowers are the very best, reducing in wildlife benefits with semi-doubled and especially fully doubled form.