Stay the hand that itches to deadhead your spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead.
The thrilling days of early summer have long passed, the intoxicating perfume of the roses and the dizzying brilliance of their flowers a distant memory. Some roses, however, have not finished enchanting us and are now producing colourful hips that seem to have been designed to sparkle in the low light of autumn. They have none of the plant’s flamboyance of a few months ago, but their charm and simplicity are a perfect accompaniment to the gentle descent into winter.
Rose hips are the capsules that contain the plant’s seeds and, given the opportunity, all roses will produce hips. Most gardeners tend to deadhead their roses, either to encourage re-flowering or to have a tidy shrub, thus preventing the plant from producing seed. There is little point, however, in doing the work of removing spent flowers on roses that do not produce a second crop, so leave those varieties alone and enjoy their autumn fruits.
First appearing as tough green berries, as the nights draw in and the temperature drops, the hips’ skins soften and their colour changes, usually into a range of tones in the orange-to-red spectrum. In general, species roses (the wild ancestors of garden hybrids) and rambling roses produce the brightest hips in the most generous quantities. Most species hold the hips in clusters or small groups, but, occasionally, they appear singly, growing on the end of stems. Rose hips stay on the plant longer than most haws and berries: birds will first devour the succulent berries of elder and viburnums, only attacking hips late in the season when they have become wrinkled and soft.
Although most gardeners, sensibly, choose roses based on the beauty of their flowers or the sweetness of their perfume, there are some members of the family whose best assets are not the flowers, but the hips that follow. When, in 1903, Ernest Wilson introduced Rosa moyesii to Britain from its home in north-west China, the excitement that greeted it was mainly caused by the plant’s hips: elongated flagons in orange-red that hang in clusters, glistening in the low autumn light and seemingly weighing down the arching stems of the shrub. The flowers themselves are an unimpressive pale pink, single and unscented, lasting a few weeks at most, whereas the brilliant hips shine from August into early December.
Hips from the dog rose. Credit: Jacky Parker via Getty
No other wild rose had created such enthusiasm among gardeners and it was inevitable that the great plant breeders of the day should try to improve it. In the 1920s, Hillier Nurseries produced a hybrid, Rosa ‘Hillieri’, with long-lasting dark-red flowers that have a slight scent, but with hips that are not as plentiful as the species. Sir Frederick Stern selected a vigorous form, R. ‘Highdownensis’, that will grow to 12ft tall, is laden with posies of cerise flowers and produces the same hips as the wild form. At the end of the 1930s, out of the RHS Wisley garden in Surrey came the cultivar that is now probably the most popular form of the plant. As its name implies, R. ‘Geranium’ has bright geranium-red flowers on a compact shrub about 8ft tall. The hips are slightly larger and even more abundant than the species, resembling a cartoon space rocket from 1960s comic books.
Even where the hips are not the main event, when choosing roses it is worth considering the contribution theirs might make to the garden. Also from China, Rosa rugosa is a valued parent of many garden roses. The fat hips are about an inch in diameter, shiny red like bunches of cherry tomatoes. This is a trait, to a greater or lesser extent, of the dozens of rugosa cultivars and hybrids. In ‘Fru Dagmar Hastrup’, they are an even deeper red than on the species and, on ‘Blanche Double de Coubert’, the plant is so long flowering that the first hips appear at the same time as the last of the flowers. In contrast, the popular ‘Roseraie de l’Hay’ produces very few hips.
The various forms of Rosa rugosa are the most undemanding of roses and will even thrive on poor, sandy soils. They are probably best planted as hedges or as specimen plants in meadows. They tend to form big bushes, from 4ft–8ft tall, so, in a mixed border, plant them where they cannot crowd out other plants. Always try to choose a situation where the shrub will receive as much late-summer and autumn sunlight as possible.
The native British rose, Rosa spinosissima, has the distinction of having maroon-black hips that resemble blueberries. Although small, they are long-lasting and, together with the trusses of scarlet hips on R. rubiginosa, they will often last until Christmas. Rambling roses produce more generous quantities of hips than other roses, but they need lots of space to be appreciated. Both ‘Bobbie James’ and ‘Kew Rambler’ grow to about 25ft tall and transform into a cascade of orange berries at the end of September. The individual berries are small, but, en masse, they create an impressive spectacle. For the largest of hips, search out in specialist nurseries R. macrophylla ‘Master Hugh’, the hips of which, sometimes 2in long, hang from its stems like Chinese lanterns, causing the whole plant to glow.
While a useful sweetener for foods, it’s important to leave some hips for our feathered friends, such as this chaffinch. Credit: Getty
Rose hips are, of course, edible and, during the interwar and postwar years in Britain, they were an important source of vitamin C. A daily spoonful of rose-hip syrup ensured the health of generations of children. The tiny hairs contained inside the hips (often the source of homemade itching powder) means a lot of work is required to produce a digestible product and their postwar popularity as an ingredient in food and drink subsequently waned.
In recent years, however, an increased enthusiasm for foraging and the emergence of young chefs interested in local wild foods has seen a resurgence in interest in the ways in which rose hips can be used. They are now present in jams, breads and pastries and some chic bars even mix rose-hip mojitos. Responsible gardeners who plan to produce rose-hip syrups, jellies or cocktails will not want to rob hedgerows of their bounty, preferring to leave the hips for birds to feast on and passers-by to admire. Planting only a few roses will yield a crop sufficient for most people’s needs. Importantly, for gardeners, they will be a major part of the family of berries, leaves and stems that illuminate the dullest days of autumn.
John Hoyland is a renowned gardener, writer and plantsman, and is the garden adviser at Glyndebourne.
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