A rose by any other name...

Go wild for the dog rose Rosa canina and R. rugosa, Kitty Scully explains why she’s a fan.

WITH Valentine’s Day just gone, love is in the air, amour is in the ambience and so too are the classic clichés of cards, chocolates and a dozen red roses. I am as much a rose lover as the next person but, like my food, I tend to prefer my roses in season and local.

Alas most roses stocked in shops at the moment have more than likely been grown in Kenya or Ethiopia and personify labour-intensive, heavily sprayed crops requiring vast amounts of water, pruning and treating before they are clipped and flown daily to buyers across Europe.