Rosehips from Raintree Nursery

While you are busy planting those blueberry bushes…consider what to place in the planting bed with them.  How about a rose variety that produce rose hips?

I did the same thing as I did with the blueberry bushes. I planted them and forgot about them…until they began to bloom!  Move over “knock out” roses! (they might be pretty but they don’t produce these beautiful rose hips!)  I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have beauty AND purpose in my planting beds! 

The most Vitamin C you’ll find is in rose hips.  It was recommended to me several years ago to plant a certain kind of rose bush that produces the largest, most succulently full rose hips. It’s called Rosa Rugosa and is available at Raintree Nursery here.

These beauties will thrive in either sun or shade if you plant them at least 4 inches apart. (I’d go 8 inches apart because they will explode with the extra room in the 2nd season!)  They will bloom from summer to fall, are drought tolerant once established (tested that in GA drought 2 years ago!)  and the best time to harvest the rosehip fruits is September and October.  Once a little bit of cold air hits the fruit, it REALLY brings out the flavor.

What do you do with the fruits once you pick them?  This is a question that I posed on an herbal gardening group, The Essential Herbal. (GREAT magazine by the way! you can sign up for it here.)  Tina Sams et all recommended that they sit for a day after being picked, then cut  them in half and dig out the seeds leaving the red pulp and skin. Be sure to get all of the “fuzzies” as I call them with the seeds. (you’ll know what I mean when you cut one in half.) Then set them out to dry in a warm ventilated place. Once they are dry, pop them in a jar and stage them for your next cup of herbal tea. YUM!  There’s many a use for rose hips! This is only one!

Happy Washing!

~Regina