Oh, what a heavenly perfume permeates the air at this time of year. The blizzard of white as the multiflora roses bloom envelopes my little convertible in a cloud of ambrosial fragrance. I love that smell, but I loathe the plant that produces it. 35 years ago the Department of Agriculture recommended that farmers grow these barbed and belligerent monsters in place of fencing, calling them "a living hedge." They do create an impenetrable barrier not even a bull can get through, but they become "a living hell" as they multiply, spreading their thorny arms in all directions, ruining New England's pasturelands.
We've been fighting with the multifloras roses in the pastures on Locust Hill for forty years. Cutting one down isn't impossible, provided you dress up in a snowmobile suit and leather gloves and are willing to carry facial scars for several weeks. But it doesn't prove much since the root quickly sprouts new shoots, longer and stronger than their slain brothers and sisters. Poisoning the cut stubs would help, but it can't be done when heifers occupy the pasture.
Multifloras change as radically as humans as they grow. The babies have delicate blue-green leaves and look just as appealing as hybrid teas. I can remember actually transplanting a young one from the pasture to the front yard back when I was ignorance of what a menace they could be. As teenagers multifloras are graceful or gawky but not shy about clawing any passerby. Some will latch onto a nearby tree and climb 20 feet or more.
As adults, the multiflora's blossoms produce a delicious odor to tempt the bees and by August the birds feast on the clusters of red berries, dropping the well-fertilized seeds far and wide. When the plants reach old age, the grandmothers are plump and contentedly deep-rooted, the grandfathers cranky and brittle, many of their branches dead but still deadly.
These wretched roses eventually destroyed our view to the west, and daughter Bridget and her husband's view from the south, so we joined forces to try and rid the pasture of these horrors. It was a mammoth undertaking. Using a heavy chain with hooks on either end, two of us would saw the chain back and forth until it got under the hanging branches to the base of a bush. Then someone would crawl under the barbed branches, bleeding and crying, to connect the chain's grab hook, while someone else attached the slip hook to Bessie, our ancient tractor.
As Bessie backed up, the chain would tighten, strangling the bush and pulling all its roots from the soil. What satisfaction! We all felt as vicious as the bushes, delighting in each one's agony and final death throws. At the end of two summers of working on this project the result was equally gratifying. Hank and I could sit on the terrace in the front yard and watch the heifers moseying down through the pasture. Bridget and John could sit on their terrace and enjoy an uninterrupted view of the big meadow.
Sad to say it didn't last long. Within a few years the sweet young multifloras had begun to take over once again. Cutting them down with a sickle-bar mower just made them pop up again. Spraying them with Roundup before the heifers arrived for the summer was the next solution, but an exhausting one. Hank spent days carrying a hand sprayer and dousing dozens and dozens of rose plants, but at the same time killing a lot of good grass as well.
Last year Hank drove over to Amenia to Crop Production Services, to see if there was something besides Roundup to solve the multiflora problem. He came home with something called Crossbow, a chemical that only kills broad-leaved plants, not grass. He then ordered a twenty-gallon sprayer (I'm guessing, as Hank is off sailing and I can't get the facts) that sits in the bucket of the tractor. None of us are thrilled with this chemical solution, but the alternative is acres of pastureland turning into a brier patch not even Brer Rabbit could enjoy.
Planting a multiflora rose bush can give you more grief than planting poison ivy, but don't let all my complaints stop you from enjoying that heady perfume that's wafting through the air this month.
