Nature organizations have been fighting a fierce battle with the Japanese rose hip for decades. The shrub, also called rugose rose or rose hip, is a threat to all original nature in the Dutch dunes. The North Holland Landscape is therefore undergoing a major intervention. They are dug from the sand by the roots between Callantsoog and Den Helder.
Fight against the hip rose: “without intervention, half the dune will be overgrown in 50 years” – NH News
“When I see the contractor at work like this at the start of a project, it brings tears to my eyes. It is quite an intervention,” says forester Tim Zutt of Landschap Noord-Holland. In the middle of the dunes near Julianadorp, several excavators are working to dig out the roots of the Japanese rose. “But if you don’t do anything, you will lose a large dune area to the rugose.”
The shrub was imported from Asia by nature lovers. They were already used in many places along the coast in the 1950s to add extra greenery to the area. Municipalities loved it because the plant is doing extremely well. Perhaps a little too well, because the rose hip has slowly crept into the dune and is now driving out everything that originally grew and bloomed there.
To proliferate
“Because that plant does not belong here, there are no natural enemies of the shrub. So it just continues to proliferate. Our animals are also not designed to live among the plants. If we do nothing, it could happen in fifty years’ time. Half the dune area is overgrown. Then we will lose our own dune system, ecosystem and all the animals that belong there.”
Text continues below the photo
Because the rose has been visible for decades, it seems to have become part of our collective memory of what the dunes should look like. “I think that an entire generation that now comes to the dunes knows no better than that the plant belongs here. But that is not the case, it was introduced by plant lovers.”
Marram grass
Landschap Noord-Holland places marram grass in places where the rose hip has been removed and there is a risk of sand drifting. “Because the soil has been disturbed, minerals come to the surface. The grass does very well for a while. In the meantime, nature takes over again and the original mosses, for example, return. But that will take a while, so we have to take a have a little patience”
In places where rose hips have already been removed, the shrub has not returned. Forest ranger Tim Zutt keeps a close eye on this. But there is still much to do. “There are still quite a few hectares in the dune area. This year, two and a half hectares will be done and hopefully another similar campaign this autumn. Until there are none left in the dunes.”
💬 Don’t want to miss anything from the Noordkop?
Seen a typo? Let us know via [email protected]