At the end of the garden season, I cling to my roses, at least figuratively. Even as night temperatures begin to dip and the geraniums on the porch shiver, I deadhead the roses to keep them producing flower buds. No one knows if the weather will cooperate long enough to bring those buds to bloom, but as long as the possibility exists, I refrain from trimming back the canes. This restraint means that some years I have full-blown roses to add to the Thanksgiving centerpiece. The flip side of that coin is that the shrubs may not get pruned until spring. Usually I can live with that tradeoff.
Rose hips are an excellent reason for letting roses do what comes naturally. Hips, which are sometimes called “heps,” are the seed vessels or fruits of the rose. Their shapes and sizes vary according to the type of rose, but many are quite beautiful. If you don’t deadhead your roses during the growing season, hips will develop after the blooms fade. In once-blooming roses, including many old-fashioned varieties, the hips help make up for the lack of decorative interest after the flush of spring or summer blooms has gone.
Hips usually turn red or orange and persist on the plant for varying lengths of time, depending on climate conditions. A once-blooming species that comes into flower in May will usually set hips by June. If the weather is hot and dry, the hips will redden, ripen and ultimately shrivel into raisin-like brownness within the space of a month or so. If a particular rose flowers later, or if the summer weather is relatively cool and dry, the hips will persist, staying red and attractive longer.
Reblooming roses set hips in the same way, but since most rose lovers are like me and deadhead regularly to stimulate rebloom, the shrubs don’t have a chance to produce hips until the end of the season. The dilemma each year revolves around when to stop deadheading and allow the development of hips that will provide some winter interest.
There are some roses that produce hips almost as showy as the flowers. One of my favorites is a Chinese species rose, Rosa moyesii. I have never grown it, though one sprang up from a chance-sown seedling at our central New York State property. Left undisciplined, the species can grow to mastodon-like proportions, with long, arching canes. It compensates by producing large quantities of single pink or brilliant red flowers in late spring or early summer. The red-flowered types, like the moyesii hybrid ‘Geranium,’ are especially eye-catching. After the flowers decline, Rosa moyesii and its hybrids produce crimson, flask-shaped hips that dangle from the branches. A full-grown shrub may have hundreds of these beautiful fruits and is a sight to behold.
Those who frequent shoreline areas have probably seen “beach roses” that produce hips the size of large cherry tomatoes. While these roses have naturalized readily, they are not native plants, but immigrants that made themselves comfortable here and multiplied. Known more formally as Rosa rugosa, the beach roses are Japanese natives distinguished by their crinkled or rugose leaves. The canes are heavily armed with prickles and produce single white or pink flowers with a spicy scent. Most bloom once a season, but the huge hips light up the darkness. Rosa rugosa and its hybrids, like the double white-flowered ‘Sir Thomas Lipton’ and rose-pink ‘Therese Bugnet,’ produce occasional repeat blooms, and then set hefty hips.
Not all roses set large hips. Some small-flowered varieties, like the rambunctious cluster-flowered Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate,’ produce sprays of small, red hips that decorate the canes like bright beads.
Allowing roses to set hips benefits the appearance of the landscape, but it is also a boon to birds, which will sometimes eat them. The fruits become sweeter as the weather grows colder, so, in my yard at least, other fruits, seeds and berries go first.
If you have a naturalistic landscape, like that at the High Line in New York City, rose hips can play an important role, providing fall and winter interest alongside the seedheads of tall grasses and the remnants of coneflowers and other perennials. Perhaps best of all, fall maintenance chores are greatly reduced.
Humans have long harvested rose hips for teas, jellies and other products. They are full of Vitamin C and not bad tasting if processed with a bit of sweetener. With the current renewal of interest in wild foods and traditional food preservation methods, rose hip jam or jelly may once again enjoy a moment in the sun.
I am not sure I will be making any rose hip jelly this year—or next—but I do use rose hips to decorate the holiday wreathes and add color to winter flower arrangements. Generally the way things work in my garden is that I keep encouraging my favorite roses to produce until they decide to stop. The out-of- the-way roses and shrubs of which I am a bit less fond end up producing lots of hips. I almost always have plenty, despite my laissez faire rose hip habits.
