Where the Wild Rose Grows

As we bid farewell to May, June has been welcomed in with glorious displays of wild roses in the hedgerows wherever I walk. Are they more prolific this year, or am I simply noticing them more as I immerse myself further and further in the living calendar around me? Either way, I’m enjoying their fragile beauty – and I can’t help but think ahead to gathering rose hips for making a delicious syrup later in the year.

In British folklore, the wild rose is more than just a sign of summer. Alongside the hawthorn it clambers through, it’s long been considered a boundary plant – one of those species that grows where worlds meet: hedgerows, holloways, and trackways worn down by centuries of footfall.

In her book Somerset Folklore (1965), Ruth Tongue records a local belief that you should never step through a briar in bloom, especially not at dusk. To do so was to risk crossing into something unseen – another world separated only by a thin veil from our own. She also notes the old caution against picking flowers from hedges at twilight, when fairy folk might be passing. I'm sure the sharp thorns alone make that advice worth following.

I’ll be sure to take care on my evening wanders – just in case I should find myself in another realm!