# Prairie Rose (Rosa arkansana)

> A low, prickly rose of the Plains whose stems often die back to near the ground, with clusters of pink flowers in early summer and orange-red hips into winter.

Also called Arkansas rose, sunshine rose, dwarf prairie rose, prairie wild rose, Rosa suffulta. Category: Native Shrubs. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/prairie-rose/

![Prairie rose (Rosa arkansana) a pink flower with yellow stamens visited by hoverflies among toothed leaflets](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/prairie-rose-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Krista Lundgren, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public domain · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASyrphid_flies_on_a_Wild_Prairie_Rose_%2814326140457%29.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Shrub
- Mature height: 1 to 5 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 3 to 7
- Grows wild in: Dry uplands, rocky ground, old fields and edges
- Native range: 19 states, north to [North Dakota](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=ND), south to [Texas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=TX), east to [Ohio](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OH) and west to [Montana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MT) ([Arkansas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=AR), [Colorado](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=CO), [Illinois](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IL), [Indiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IN), [Iowa](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IA), [Kansas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=KS), [Michigan](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MI), [Minnesota](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MN), [Missouri](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MO), [Montana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MT), [Nebraska](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NE), [New Mexico](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NM), [North Dakota](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=ND), [Ohio](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OH), [Oklahoma](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OK), [South Dakota](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=SD), [Texas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=TX), [Wisconsin](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=WI) and [Wyoming](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=WY)). Also recorded, not native, in [Massachusetts](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MA), [New York](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NY) and [the District of Columbia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=DC)
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Dry, Average
- Growth rate: Fast
- Flowers: May to August
- Fruit: Hips, August to October
- First crop: 2 to 5 years
- Mature spread: 10 ft
- Traits: Showy flowers, Drought tolerant, Wildlife value
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

## Availability

Saplings ship [bare-root](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/planting-bare-root-trees-on-arrival/index.html.md) or [in a pot](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/a-sapling-in-a-pot/index.html.md), [usually 12 to 18 inches tall](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/small-sapling-or-big-transplant/index.html.md), in the dormant season, and their height and age are stated with the price, once available. Live plants ship February to May and October to November. Not priced yet: leave an email on the web page for one email when it is priced, with a code for 10% off the plants in that order, not shipping or tax, or write to captain@bluewhaletrees.com.

## Notes

Prairie rose is a low wild rose of the Great Plains, a prickly shrub of prairies, dry hillsides and roadsides. It shares its name with the climbing prairie rose we grow, a tall rambler of the Midwest and South, but this one stays short and its stems often die back to near the ground. It stands drought exceptionally well, and in the Great Drought of 1934 it never wilted and bore an unusually large crop of hips. Ohio lists it as presumed extirpated. Mass it along a dry, sunny bank or among prairie grasses, where its pink flowers and orange-red hips feed bees and birds.

## Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator uses the fast rate of our other wild roses, about 1.7 feet a year at its size. It makes a prickly shrub 1 to 5 feet tall, though the stems often die back to near the ground in drought or hard winters and sprout again. It is long-lived, and its stout roots reach 8 to 12 feet down.

Clusters of pink flowers, sometimes fading to white, about an inch and a half across, open from May into August. Bumble bees and other native bees visit them. Dull orange-red hips about half an inch across follow in clusters of two or three, ripen from late summer into fall and hang on into winter. Cottontails eat it in winter, and mule deer browse it in summer.

It grows wild from Alberta and Manitoba south through the Great Plains to Texas and New Mexico, and east to Wisconsin, Missouri and Ohio. Its home is prairies, dry hillsides, rocky slopes, bluffs, open woods and roadsides. In New England and New York it has come in from elsewhere, and those stands seldom last.

## How to grow Prairie Rose

Prairie rose wants full sun, and it takes light shade. It grows in most soils, from sand to clay loam, but not in very wet or very acid ground. Once rooted it shrugs off drought. Keep it 3 feet from a wall or walk. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Prairie rose is hard to raise from seed, and untreated seed has sprouted at under one percent. Treat any sowing as a trial, and expect most seed to wait a year or more before it comes up.

Water weekly through the first summer, then let it fend for itself. Deer and rabbits browse it, so guard young plants with wire. Cut winter-killed stems to the ground in early spring, and new shoots will replace them.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, so there are no male and female plants to pair. Most wild roses first flower and set seed at 2 to 5 years old, with good crops every year or two. Browsing deer cut its flowering and its seed crop. It is one of the more aggressive native roses and moves into grazed and abandoned fields.

## Sources

- [USDA Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System: Rosa arkansana, Hauser 2006](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/shrub/rosark/all.html)
- [Flora of North America, vol. 9: Rosa arkansana](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=242417144)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Rosa arkansana](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=ROAR3)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Rosa chapter, Meyer](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Rosa.pdf)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Rosa arkansana](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.129606/Rosa_arkansana)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [How fast every tree and shrub we grow gets tall: growth rate, A to Z](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/growth-rates/index.html.md)
- [The habitat around a tree is part of the tree](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/habitat-around-a-tree/index.html.md)
- [Invasive vines and shrubs are what is killing your woods](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/invasive-vines-and-shrubs/index.html.md)

## Related

- Other roses (Rosa) we grow: [Climbing Prairie Rose](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/climbing-prairie-rose/index.html.md), [Prickly Rose](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/prickly-rose/index.html.md)
- Trees to plant it under: [Common Hackberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/common-hackberry/index.html.md), [Western Soapberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/western-soapberry/index.html.md) and [Winged Elm](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/winged-elm/index.html.md)
- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Prairie Rose, add ?species=prairie-rose with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address; for example, the verdict for zone 3, part sun and average soil as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md?species=prairie-rose&zone=3&sun=part&moisture=average
- [Companion species for Prairie Rose](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=prairie-rose): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate for Prairie Rose as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md?species=prairie-rose (add height=, years= and site= poor, average or good)
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Prairie Rose is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan for it as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md?species=prairie-rose (add state= and zone= for your own frost dates, method=fridge for the refrigerator route)
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Prairie Rose needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the verdict for 1 of them as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md?plants=prairie-rose:1
- [Planting-window tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md): when to plant Prairie Rose where you live, as a fall and a spring window from the local frost dates; the windows as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md?species=prairie-rose&state=MO&zone=6 with your own state and zone in place of those
- [Planting-distance tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md): how far Prairie Rose goes from a house, a septic field, a walk, wires, a property line and the next tree; the distances as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md?species=prairie-rose&near=house,septic,pavement,wires,boundary,tree
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Prairie Rose flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species; its own row and the gaps of a planting with it as Markdown at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md?plants=prairie-rose