In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

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November 9, 2007

Fruit of the rose

I’ve said it many times: Let the gardeners of summer enjoy their hybrid tea roses at the peak of
bloom. Let them enjoy June’s
flowery bounty captured oh so
briefly in a crystal bud vase.

Give me instead the roses of fall and winter when their blood red or luminous yellow hips ripen and decorate the bare stems like masses of holiday baubles. Set against fall’s gray skies, the colors seem to glow and shimmer.
There’s Rosa rugosa with its bright yellow foliage and fat, blood red hips. Rosa moyessii makes flagon shaped orange/red hips, while Rosa helenae makes lax clusters of small orange ones. The rose called Orangeade makes big two-inch hips, while Rosa pimpinellifolia makes hips that are almost black. R. The Fairy makes tiny red hips.

Rose hips are simply roses going to seed and producing fruit. Most gardeners never see hips, sometimes called heps, on their roses because they judiciously deadhead the spent flowers. Some roses - mainly the ones with masses of tightly packed petals - rarely produce hips. Generally, the roses most likely to produce hips are the ones with single or open petals that reveal the stamens in the flower’s center. Pollinating insects are rarely able to reach the center of the roses with lots of petals.

The hips, sometimes called heps, are used in medicine, in cooking and for tea. The sweet-tasting outer portion is used. The seeds and the pithy interior, which can be bitter, are discarded.

Next year, consider not cutting the spent roses. Leave a few to make hips for the fall. If nothing else, it’s a good excuse not to deadhead the roses.

Photo by Owen Brewer, Sacramento Bee

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