Everything is finally coming up roses

THIS is the season of roses.

Everywhere I look, roses are in flower or in bud. Wild roses adorn the roadside ditches. Why they are called dog roses, I cannot guess; it sounds pejorative, as if they are inferior to garden roses. But they are so-called because in medieval times they were used in the treatment of rabies.

Field roses bloom on field ditches, burnet roses among the sand dunes and, usually near the sea, the now-common and naturalised Japanese roses with big, soft-petalled, short-lived flowers, which later produce shiny-red rosehips as large as crab apples.