Rosa Villosa

Rosa villosa, the apple rose, is a vigorous European shrub with grey-green, softly downy and lightly aromatic foliage. Carmine buds open into fragrant single clear-pink flowers in early summer, followed by exceptionally large crimson hips shaped like small apples and often clothed in fine bristles. The fruits create an impressive early-autumn display and are useful to wildlife. Hardy, wind tolerant and adaptable to sun or partial shade, this old species rose makes an excellent informal hedge or specimen where its broad outline and distinctive hips have room to develop.