Now a days - a rose by any other name is just a wild rose

[Nanoose]

I resonantly found out something interesting about the commercial rose growing business and thought I would share.
The way a nursery grows roses is by cutting a wild rose bush back to its crown. Then they drill holes in the crown and then they put cuttings of a domestic or hybrid rose in the holes.
An advantage to growing the roses this way is – the cuttings will develop a crown much sooner then if they were grown in soil.
A disadvantage to growing the cuttings on a wild rose crown is – those roses will only flower for 8 to 12 years – if they grew the cuttings in soil they would flower for 50 or more years.

What happens is - well the rose cuttings are growing in the wild rose crown they inherit a character of a wild rose bush which is only flowering for a few years.

The nursery saves about 5 years getting a cutting ready for market by growing them on a wild rose crown but I’m sure knowing that the customer will be back in 8 or 12 years for a new rose bush instead of 50 doesn’t hurt. Cheers and happy week end!

[Wahoo]

Rose hips (whatever the hell they are) are chockful of vitamin C, or so I hear. Nasturtiums also have always been one of my favorite ornamental plants (if not one of the hardest words to spell correctly). Not only are the flowers purty, but nasturtiums--being a sort of water cress--are also edible, with a pleasing peppery taste. My mom used to plant them in our window sill flower boxes, and I'd always get a good switching for eating them.

I'm getting hungry...think I'll go foraging for some rose hips and nasturtiums for breakfast.

[Nanoose]

Ya nasturtiums do have a nice taste – right now the fiddle heads are coming up on the sword ferns the fiddle heads are nice for salads and have a nutty taste. Bet a few nasturtiums in a fiddle head salad would be real nice – peppery nutty taste. Around here the fiddle heads will be long gone before the nasturtiums get their flowers so I probably will never get to try it. Not sure what a rose hip is – are they the bud that is left after the pedals fall off and do you cook them? Cheers!

[Wahoo]

Never yet eaten fiddle heads, though I did once cook up a small batch of stinging nettle. Grows wild and in abundance around creeks where I'm from and your skin feels like it's on fire if you so much as brush against one, but cooking instantly softens the painful spines on the leaves and stalks, making it edible--compares favorably with callaloo or spinach, I think.

Skunk cabbage (or at least parts of the plant) is also edible, or so I've heard. Cattail roots, too.