Nootka rose grows in a wide variety of habitats, from sea level to mid elevations.
It needs sun but will tolerate some shade, often growing along forest edges.
 It grows in moist riparian soils and in dry glacial till soils.
It grows in fencerows, hedgerows, pastures, shrubby wetlands, woodlands, prairies, and meadows.

Nootka rose thickets provide habitat and food for birds and small wildlife.
Deer browse the flowers, young stems, and hips.
They are used in wetland mitigation buffers and in native plant landscaping.

R. nutkana hosts gall-making wasps of the family Cynipidae, genus Diplolepis, in the insect class Hymenoptera.
Two species are D. polita, which makes bristly round red or green galls on leaves, and D. rosae, the mossy rose gall, which makes large, mossy, feathery, greenish or yellowish growths on stems.
Nootka rose grows in a wide variety of habitats, from sea level to mid elevations. It needs sun but will tolerate some shade, often growing along forest edges.  It grows in moist riparian soils and in dry glacial till soils. It grows in fencerows, hedgerows, pastures, shrubby wetlands, woodlands, prairies, and meadows.
Nootka rose thickets provide habitat and food for birds and small wildlife. Deer browse the flowers, young stems, and hips. They are used in wetland mitigation buffers and in native plant landscaping.
R. nutkana hosts gall-making wasps of the family Cynipidae, genus Diplolepis, in the insect class Hymenoptera. Two species are D. polita, which makes bristly round red or green galls on leaves, and D. rosae, the mossy rose gall, which makes large, mossy, feathery, greenish or yellowish growths on stems.
Rosa nutkana