Rubus spectabilis Olympic Double

Rubus specabilis 'Olympic Double', also known as 'Flore Pleno', is one of the most beautiful ornamental brambles that can be offered to a natural garden or a rural hedge. Vigorous, suckering, developing prickly stems, the bush offers miniature rose-like flowers in early spring. The double flowers are of a bright pink-purple that matches perfectly with the tender green of its young leaves. The flowers are followed by small edible blackberries, yellow-orange in colour, quite tasteless, but much appreciated by birds. Hardy and not very demanding in terms of soil, requiring very little maintenance, this plant, both charming and unpretentious, is within reach of all gardeners, even beginners. 

The Rose-Flowered Bramble, in Latin Rubus spectabilis, belongs to the rose family. This suckering plant is native to the western coast of the United States, from Alaska to California. It is found there growing in the clear shade of wet forests or near watercourses, often in the company of red alders. 'Olympic Double' is, as its name suggests, a double-flowered form of this beautiful wild bramble.

This suckering shrub plant with shallow rooting is very resistant to cold and perfectly adapted to temperate climates, but it shows a preference for deep, fertile, and moist soils.

Growing quite rapidly, a plant will eventually form a bushy and spreading mass that will occupy a space of 1.5m (5ft) in all directions. It spreads laterally through rhizomes, producing shoots in the manner of raspberries. Flowering takes place in April, appearing at the axils of young leaves. It consists of flowers measuring 3 to 5cm (1 to 2in) in diameter, not fragrant, but nectar-rich. They are solitary or grouped in 2 to 4 units, and their colour is a deep pink-purple, of beautiful vivacity. The fruits are like large raspberries 1.5 to 2cm (1in) long, edible, juicy, and yellow-orange in colour. They are quite tasteless when eaten as is, but reveal a more pleasant flavor in jams. The perennial and not biennial stems like in other Rubus species, slightly prickly, erect and then trailing, are covered with a paper-like cinnamon-coloured bark that flakes with age. They bear large leaves measuring 10 to 15cm (4 to 6in) long, divided into 3 doubly toothed lobes. The leaf surface has a wavy appearance and displays a beautiful emerald-green colour before turning yellow in autumn. It disappears in winter and develops in spring, at the same time as the flowers appear.

Invite the Olympic Double Ornamental Bramble into a wild hedge, giving it enough space to express itself. This beautiful spring shrub pairs well with forsythias, Spiraea prunifolia Plena, Japanese kerrias, and Japanese quinces, all shrubs that are just as easy to cultivate in any good garden soil. Under these conditions, the shrub will establish itself very easily and in a few years will form an ornamental plant perfectly in place in a rural setting or in a natural garden. Within a large shrub bed, combine this bramble with other unpretentious plants such as wild rose varieties, elderberries, viburnums, lilacs, hedge honeysuckles or Tartarian honeysuckles, or even with deciduous euonymus. It can also be used to form a large ground cover; it will decorate a wild corner like a large semi-shaded slope with carpets of periwinkles, Polygonum, and creeping bugles, all of which are vigorous plants that are also undemanding. Lastly, the Olympic Double Bramble is a shrub that is both ornamental and useful to the garden's wildlife.