This year there is a slender tumble of dog roses beside the field hedge gap into the allotment. The hedge grows particularly tall just here, a straggle of self-seeded tree saplings and hawthorn in the shadow of a spreading ash tree. At first it seems a puzzling place for Rosa canina to take up residence. So much deep shade. I’d certainly not seen wild roses growing there before, though they once scrambled over the sunny hedgerow further down the field. But then that was before last autumn’s hedge cutting, when the farmer’s tractor-mounted slash ‘n mash device grubbed them up as it passed. So perhaps this new briar, flowering now in less likely surroundings, is an expression of survival, the ash tree’s stalwart presence ensuring swift retraction of the cut and ravage blades; providing sanctuary from an indiscriminate uprooting. Perhaps we all need an ash tree in some form or another.
The photo was taken back in May as I headed home after a spot of evening gardening.
Lens-Artists: One Single Flower
This week Cee has set the theme, inspired by her favourite quotation from the Buddha: “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”
Tish Farrell 
Really nice photo. And really pretty rose.
Thank you, Beverly.
Nature can be quite stubborn, triumphing over our best attempts to defeat her! A lovely reminder of her strength Tish
That is very well put, Tina. You took the thoughts out my head 🙂
This is awesome!
Thank you.
it is beautiful and a good reminder of resilience! 🙂
Indeed, Lola. And so important to remember that we humans have it too when so much in the media is making us feel vulnerable; and so we become vulnerable.
How fortunate for you to have these wild flowers so close to home. Thanks for posting and giving me a botanical name I didn’t know. (Well, I don’t know many anyway, but thanks for teaching me this one.)
Always happy to pass on flower info 🙂
Tish, this is a beautiful heritage rose. Oh so lovely. Thanks for playing in the Lens-Artists challenge 😀
Thanks fot the lovely challenge, Cee. And so nice to find you guesting at Lens-Artists.
It’s been real fun to be a part of the team for a week. The hosts are all so very nice and talented. 😀
I hate it when the farmer does that slash and mash in the lanes here, I could cry at the devastation as branches are torn and broken 💔. Thank goodness for resilience and yes, it does apply to humans, though I am being very cautious.
It’s such a pity when hedges are mangled. They are such important reserves when well managed.
Totally agree.
Beautiful. Full stop. That’s all that needs to be said.
janet
A delicate beauty but a tough guy 🙂 🙂
And more than a touch prickly if you approach it in the wrong way.
I know this has nothing to do with your lovely white flower, but this is the latest book coming out by Jasper Fforde, called “A Constant Rabbit.”
“A new stand-alone novel from the New York Times best-selling author of Early Riser and the Thursday Next series
England, 2022. There are 1.2 million human-size rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk, drive cars, and they like to read Voltaire, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphizing Event 55 years before.
A family of rabbits is about to move into Much Hemlock, a cozy little village in Middle England where life revolves around summer fetes, jam making, gossipy corner stores, and the oh-so-important Best Kept Village awards.
No sooner have the rabbits arrived than the villagers decide they must depart, citing their propensity to burrow and breed, and their shameless levels of veganism.
But Mrs. Constance Rabbit is made of sterner stuff, and her and her family decide they are to stay. Unusually, their neighbors – longtime resident Peter Knox and his daughter, Pippa – decide to stand with them…and soon discover that you can be a friend to rabbits or humans, but not both. With a blossoming romance, acute cultural differences, enforced rehoming to a MegaWarren in Wales, and the full power of the ruling United Kingdom Anti-Rabbit Party against them, Peter and Pippa are about to question everything they had ever thought about their friends, their nation, and their species.
An inimitable blend of satire, fantasy, and thriller, The Constant Rabbit is the latest dazzlingly original foray into Jasper Fforde’s ever-astonishing creative genius.”
You think maybe it’s about your little town?
It’s certainly sounds to be in the right neck of the woods (as it were). Much Hemlock indeed! Must keep an eye out for the Voltaire reading rabbits! Thanks for the ‘warning’!
Beautiful and wise words 🙂
Thank you, Becky.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
A beautiful flower to make me smile; and wise words to remind me of nature’s resilience.
Thanks, Su. I’m thinking too we need to nurture our inner ash trees. And to remember that we have them 🙂
I think you are right Tish. And the remembering is often the hardest part.
Simplistic beauty. But then just like simplicity in design requires intelligence, beauty does not lie in the frills
Thanks, Abrie. I agree about the frills. Usually best avoided in all contexts.
“Mignonne allons voir si la rose…” (Ronsard)
A very pleasant shot Tish. What a strange name. Dog rose. I think it’s what we call “églantier”. And strangely enough we have one in our new house. More thorns than flowers, but a very strong perfume.Stay safe.
It is a strange name, but it maybe something to do with its sepals, which are its distinguishing species indicators – i.e. tell it apart from other similar wild strains. I’ve not looked, but gathered two of them have whiskers. Here’s a bit of English folk lore:
“An old riddle, ‘The Five Brethren of the Rose’, provides an effective way of identifying roses of the canina group:
On a summer’s day, in sultry weather
Five Brethren were born together.
Two had beards and two had none
And the other had but half a one.
Here ‘brethren’ refers to the five sepals of the Dog-rose, two of which are whiskered on both sides, two quite smooth and the last one whiskered on one side only.”
And yes Shakespeare called them ‘eglantine’.
Happy Friday!
What a lovely riddle.
I will have to check our flowers tomorrow.
How considerate of Shakespeare to say ‘églantine’. 😉
(He was a man of taste, and I suppose many in his time spoke – spake – Latin and French?
Bonne semaine Tish
Happy week to you too, Brian.
Excellent. Great contrast. Love the white vs. the dark green.
Thanks, John.